Overview
Wilczyńska and colleagues measured lead, cadmium, total arsenic and zinc (and pesticide residues) in 15 Polish honeys from the 2025 season, 12 from certified organic apiaries and 3 from conventional apiaries, each analyzed in quadruplicate. Lead ranged from 17.19 to 644.34 µg/kg, and the authors report that seven of the twelve organic honeys were above the EU maximum of 100 µg/kg. The authors call the study preliminary and exploratory because the groups are small, unequal and not geographically matched.
Key numbers
- Lead, highest single honey: 644.34 ± 51.81 µg/kg, organic sample 9 from a peri-urban apiary in Małopolska Province (Table 4, p. 8).
- Lead, conventional honeys: 27.01, 22.90 and 75.64 µg/kg (Table 4, p. 8).
- Arsenic, highest: 287.72 ± 19.97 µg/kg (sample 5) and 182.97 ± 9.18 µg/kg (sample 4), both from Podkarpackie Province (Table 4, p. 8).
- Cadmium range 0.71 to 53.68 µg/kg (Section 3.1, p. 8).
- All-sample summary in the intake table: lead mean 0.147 and maximum 0.644 mg/kg; arsenic mean 0.055 and maximum 0.387 mg/kg (Table 6, p. 10).
Methods (brief)
About 1.3 g honey was digested with nitric acid in a closed microwave system. Arsenic, cadmium and lead were measured by graphite furnace AAS with a palladium modifier, and zinc by flame AAS. Calibration used certified single-element standards. Each honey was analyzed four times and reported as mean ± SD.
Evidence Fitness
Fifteen honeys, one per apiary, so this is a small preliminary sample. The paper states no limit of detection, limit of quantification, certified reference material or recovery for any element, so accuracy cannot be checked. Table 6 gives an arsenic maximum of 0.387 mg/kg that conflicts with the Table 4 maximum of 287.72 µg/kg; both are recorded as printed and flagged. The seven-of-twelve lead exceedance count is the authors’ observation and is kept as a note, not as a finding. The organic versus conventional lead difference (p = 0.021) is confounded by geography, as the authors say. Botanical origin is not reported.