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(70-06) Trace elements in honey. Sager, M.1, Pechhacker, H.*,1, Pechhacker, M.1, 1 Bundesamt und Forschungszentrum f. Landwirtschaft, Wien, Austria ABSTRACT- Honey is one of the least mineralized foods, less than for common plant samples, and even for cereals (0,2 - 0,5% ash content). The composition of honey may be influenced by plant and season (see also pollen analysis), atmospheric deposition, soil and geology, bee-keeping and honey processing, honey collection strategy of different honey bee hives. As the collection of honey is highly integrative within a circle of about 2 km, use of honey as an environmental indicator has to be considered. Honey samples were dissolved with concentrated nitric acid, and submitted to ICP determinations, and flame AES for K. In case of Pb, Cd, and Cr, however, the detection limit of the ICP-OES was insufficient, and graphite furnace AAS had to be used. Quantitative regain of added Al, As, B, Be, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mn, Mo, Ni, P, Sr, V and Zn was achieved. If the trace element contents refer to total ash, B, P, Zn and K are strongly enriched Referrring to total ash contents B, P, Zn and K have been found to be strongly enriched with respect to their mean earth crust abundance. The within-hive variations between different honeycombs were smaller than the analytical precisions, but differences in honey composition from hives from the same place frequently occurred. Concentrations in rape honey from 3 different sites were largely overlapping, the most significant differences emerged from Mn. Within Vienna, data from limetree samples from a central urban area and a garden area were largely within the same range. Key words: honey, trace elements, pollution indicator, boron |
