Risk assessment of antibiotic and pesticide residues associated with the consumption of honey bees (Apis mellifera lamarckii)

Abstract

In this study, a detection of antibiotic and pesticide residues in honey bees (Apis mellifera lamarckii) samples collected from the Egyptian local market followed by evaluation of human health risk assessment for both adults and children associated with honey consumption as a result of contamination with pesticide and antibiotic residues by calculation of human health risk assessment
parameters such as HQ and HI. Modified method was used for antibiotics analysis shows acceptable recovery for 97% of the tested antibiotics between 70 and 115% while only 3% recovered between 60- 69% with RSD of 21% in accordance with the EU guidelines 2002/657/EC. The limit of quantification for most of the target antibiotics was 10μg/kg except for Flumequine, trimethoprim (5μg /kg),
Erythromycin (4μg/kg), and chloramphenicol (0.075μg/kg), LOD ranging from 0.002-0.004 μg/kg with method expanded uncertainty (Uexp) = 38 %. One-hundred-sixteen honey samples collected from (Giza, Cairo) Egyptian local markets were used to evaluate the human health risk assessment of both adults and children associated with honey consumption as a result of contamination with pesticide and antibiotic residues by calculation of human health risk assessment parameters such as HQ and HI. The results show that honey was contaminated with antibiotic residues belonging to five different chemical groups. The cumulative risk assessment parameters (cHI) for adults according to antibiotics chemical groups were calculated. The order of (cHI) was tetracyclines, quinolone, macrolide, and sulfonamides with values 1.559, 1.372, 0.001, 0.100 for children and 1.109, 0.976, 0.001, and 0.071 for adults respectively. For pesticide residues, 5% of the samples (n=6) out of 116 (mainly nigella sativa honey product containing wax) were contaminated with DMF, three less than the method limit of quantification, and the other contain residues of DMF less than EU-MRL. Hence, there is a need for continuous surveys and monitoring to protect adult and children from exposure to antibiotics, as well as beekeepers’ education programs to control antibiotics uses during to treatment of honeybee colonies, in order to meet food safety standards and protect human health.