comparison of flumethrin and fluvalinate residues in honey and beeswax

Abstract: production of sound foods is a major concern. like other foods, honey product is also subjected to contaminations. the most important contributor to the contamination is chemicals used to face to pests and illnesses. varroa mite is one of significant pests in honey bee production and, therefore, anti-mite chemicals are of important contaminators of the hives. a total number of 12 hives with comparable situations of population were selected. the study was conducted for five weeks in a completely randomized design with two treatment groups, including apistan (active ingredient, fluvalinate) and bayvarol (active ingredient, flumethrin) with 6 replicates each. residues of flumethrin and fluvalinate in honey and beeswax were identified using high performance liquid chromatography (hplc). sample preparation was performed using the quechers method. the quechers (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) method uses a single-step buffered acetonitrile (mecn) extraction and salting out liquid–liquid partitioning from the water in the sample with mgso4. examination of the results shows that the residue of apistan in both honey and wax products was significantly higher than that of bayvarol. in our study, fluvalinate had an average of 64 ppm remaining in honey, and in the wax was calculated to be 17 ppm, which is higher than previous reports. unlike fluvalinate, residue is not a major problem with flumethrin and is probably due to the amount of active ingredient in each strip (flumethrin 3.6 mg per strip and fluvalinate 880 mg per strip).