Honeybee and consumer’s exposure and risk characterisation to glyphosate-based herbicide (GBH) and its degradation product (AMPA): Residues in beebread, wax, and honey

Pesticides and Environmental Contaminants in Organic Honeys According to Their Different Productive Areas toward Food Safety Protection

“…This result is in accordance with a previous study regarding Italian organic honey marketed in Italy [7]. Our evidence is also echoed in research by El Agraebi et al [4], where no transfer of GLY from wax to honey was detected. Despite this finding, caution should be taken in the interpretation of the results since the literature confirmed GLY toxicity below regulatory limits [47] and the genotoxicity of AMPA [48].…”

“…It is fundamental to monitor contaminant residues present in foodstuff, such as honey, to prevent health risks in humans, as it is an aliment broadly consumed throughout the population, including the most vulnerable groups, such as children and the elderly [2]. Beebread, beeswax, and honey contamination by pesticides can also affect the colonies' vitality when contaminated matrices are present during larvae development, leading to serious ecotoxicological issues [3,4]. Moreover, honey is widely used to control oxidative deterioration processes in fruit and vegetables and/or reactions of lipid oxidation in meat [5], avoiding pathogen and microorganism proliferation that leads to the decomposition of food [6].…”

“…Although this herbicide exhibits a low toxicity to adult honey bees [35], GLY has recently been associated with sub-lethal health issues in bees due to its chronic accumulation in the hive [36], representing a potential risk for food safety. Although other pesticides have been detected in honey bee products, such as royal jelly and wax combs, there is a lack of information on GLY incidence in these matrices [4]. Due to the analytical difficulties in detecting GLY and its metabolite-aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA)-by conventional methods due to their physical and chemical properties [37], it is important to develop reliable analytical methods to monitor their presence, fate, and levels in bee hive product samples, as reported in our previous work [7].…”

A Review of the Analytical Methods Based on Chromatography for Analyzing Glyphosate in Foods

“…A 2020 paper evaluated the exposure risk of bees and humans to GLYP and AMPA residues in three different bee matrices, that is, beebread, wax, and paired samples of wax/honey collected from 379 Belgian apiaries using an analytical method based on clean-up on SPE-C18 followed by derivatization step with FMOC-Cl and HPLC-ESI-MS/MS analysis [93]. LOD and LOQ of 1 ng g −1 and 10 ng g −1 , respectively, were achieved for both compounds in all matrices with recoveries ranging between 72.2 and 112.9% and RSDs from 0.1 to 4.5%.…”

How far can we go with herbicides that rely on classic modes of action?

“…Several active ingredients (as imidazolinone, glyphosate, sulfonylurea, glufosinate, triazine, dicamba, 2,4‐D) with herbicidal effects can be used for weed control (Nandula, 2019). The first issue is that some of these chemicals can negatively affect animal life (El Agrebi et al., 2020; Farina, Balbuena, Herbert, Goñalons, & Vázquez, 2019), environment, and human health (Van Bruggen et al., 2018). The second issue is the lack of commercialization of a truly new herbicide with a new mode of action since the 1990s (Nandula, 2019).…”