Tomczyk et al. 2020 - Polish honey metal transfer
Tomczyk et al. measured Cd, Pb, Al, Mn, and Ni across a soil-plant-bee-honey chain in Podkarpackie, Poland. The source is direct occurrence evidence for honey because it reports metal concentrations by honey variety and habitat type, with 50 honey samples analyzed by ICP-OES after microwave digestion. The authors found low Cd and Pb in most honey samples, while a small number of honeydew and floral honeys exceeded the Polish limits they cited for Cd or Pb.
Key numbers
Table 2 reports honey concentrations in mg/kg honey. The table labels the wider set as mg/kg dry weight for bee bodies and honey samples, but the methods section separately states honey results as mg/kg for honey.
| Honey type | Area | Cd mean (min-max) | Pb mean (min-max) | Al mean (min-max) | Mn mean (min-max) | Ni mean (min-max) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honeydew | Ecological | 0.03 +/- 0.01 (0.02-0.04) | 0.08 +/- 0.12 (0.00-0.31) | 47.00 +/- 32.78 (2.30-86.29) | 4.03 +/- 1.606 (1.580-5.875) | 0.53 +/- 0.47 (0.00-1.49) |
| Honeydew | Urbanized | 0.04 +/- 0.01 (0.02-0.05) | 0.09 +/- 0.19 (0.00-0.77) | 54.37 +/- 27.37 (0.36-91.33) | 4.55 +/- 1.97 (0.16-6.82) | 0.54 +/- 0.54 (0.00-1.52) |
| Goldenrod | Ecological | 0.02 +/- 0.01 (0.01-0.03) | 0.03 +/- 0.04 (0.00-0.08) | 7.97 +/- 3.93 (0.97-10.06) | 2.44 +/- 2.72 (0.15-7.14) | 0.08 +/- 0.11 (0.00-0.23) |
| Goldenrod | Urbanized | 0.02 +/- 0.01 (0.01-0.04) | 0.02 +/- 0.02 (0.00-0.05) | 8.63 +/- 7.47 (1.79-16.66) | 1.29 +/- 0.76 (0.18-1.88) | 0.55 +/- 0.37 (0.00-0.79) |
| Dandelion | Ecological | 0.03 +/- 0.01 (0.02-0.05) | 0.09 +/- 0.09 (0.01-0.40) | 8.13 +/- 6.57 (0.00-46.16) | 3.59 +/- 2.43 (0.28-7.42) | 0.35 +/- 0.46 (0.00-1.44) |
| Dandelion | Urbanized | 0.02 +/- 0.01 (0.01-0.05) | 0.04 +/- 0.05 (0.00-0.17) | 1.72 +/- 2.45 (0.00-10.29) | 4.31 +/- 3.83 (0.29-11.34) | 0.17 +/- 0.27 (0.00-1.02) |
| Rapeseed | Ecological | 0.02 +/- 0.00 (0.02-0.02) | not detected | 1.81 +/- 1.73 (0.47-4.65) | 0.26 +/- 0.08 (0.18-0.36) | 0.72 +/- 0.34 (0.14-0.97) |
| Rapeseed | Urbanized | 0.01 +/- 0.01 (0.01-0.03) | 0.04 +/- 0.05 (0.00-0.12) | 2.85 +/- 2.36 (0.48-5.61) | 0.46 +/- 0.12 (0.34-0.63) | 0.70 +/- 0.56 (0.00-1.12) |
| Tilia | Ecological | 0.04 +/- 0.03 (0.02-0.07) | 0.04 +/- 0.01 (0.02-0.05) | 2.35 +/- 0.85 (1.37-2.89) | 2.22 +/- 1.39 (0.71-3.43) | 0.17 +/- 0.07 (0.10-0.24) |
| Tilia | Urbanized | 0.02 +/- 0.00 (0.02-0.02) | 0.02 +/- 0.02 (0.01-0.05) | 1.97 +/- 0.94 (1.19-3.01) | 0.90 +/- 0.47 (0.39-1.33) | 0.63 +/- 0.85 (0.05-1.66) |
The authors summarize the honey Cd range as 0.01-0.07 mg/kg and the honey Pb range as 0.00-0.77 mg/kg. They state that 5% of honey samples exceeded the cited 0.03 mg/kg Cd limit, represented by two honeydew, two dandelion, and one tilia sample, while two honeydew samples exceeded the cited 0.30 mg/kg Pb limit.
Methods (brief)
The study selected ten apiary sampling points in southeastern Poland: five in urbanized areas and five in ecologically pure areas. It collected soils, bee forage plants, bee bodies, and 50 honeys covering five honey varieties. Honey and biological samples were microwave-mineralized with nitric acid and analyzed by ICP-OES; the method section reports a detection threshold of at least 0.01 mg/kg, with targeted repeatability of 20% and recoveries from 97% to 102%.
Implications
Certification: This is routeable honey occurrence evidence for Cd, Pb, Al, Mn, and Ni, with product-form values in mg/kg honey by variety and Polish habitat type.
Courses: The paper is useful for explaining why soil and plant contamination do not translate mechanically into honey contamination; the authors identify the bee body as a partial barrier for Cd and Pb transfer into honey.
App: Honey can carry measurable Cd and Pb, but this Polish dataset suggests most samples were below the cited Polish limits, with exceedances concentrated in a few honeydew and floral samples.
Microbiome (if applicable): Not addressed.
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Verification notes
The PDF title, author list, DOI, year, publication, methods, and Table 2 values were read from the auto-fetched PDF. The paper reports total element concentrations, not arsenic speciation or mercury speciation. The source supports honey occurrence and soil-to-honey transfer context; it does not support US-market benchmark pooling without a separate market-stratification decision.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 3ac7720 | 2026-06-03 | triage sweep 2026-06-03 0550: 0 rollups + 4 skips |