Meadow honey

Concentrations of selected elements and radionuclide activities in different types of honey (predominantly nectar honey from meadows, mixed meadow nectar and honeydew honey, and honeydew honey from hr and spruce forests) from the Gorski Kotar area are presented in Table 10.10. Among all of the studied elements, potassium comprised about 90 percent or more of the total cation amount in honey. The mean potassium content was the lowest in meadow honey ( 0.09 percent), followed by mixed honeys ( 0.15 percent), and the highest in honeydew honey ( 0.28 percent). Strontium and nickel concentrations in honey were the lowest in meadow honey and the highest in honeydew honey. Compared to " K, the concentrations of Sr and Ni were about three orders of magnitude lower, even hundred of thousands times lower in comparison to the total potassium content. 

The lowest transfers were found into meadow honey. Without exception, transfer factors from soil into honey for all of the elements measured were significantly higher into mixed floral meadow and forest honeys (containing both nectar and honeydew) than into nectar meadow honey. Rb and Cs showed significantly higher (at P< 0.001) transfers into mixed honeys compared to honey from meadows, although rubidium transfer into meadow honey was still very low (0.197 percent). Only (6.73 percent) and Pb (1.28 percent) showed transfers greater than 1 percent into meadow honey, followed by Cu (0.859 percent) and Ca (0.583 percent). 

Table 10.2 Pollen determination resnlts of typical Croatian mixed bnsh-tree and meadow nectar honey collected in early 1990s...

The average and the range of Cs and activities found in nectar honey (meadow nectar, bush-tree, and mixed honey) that was collected between 1990 and 1996 in Croatia are presented in Table 10.3. Previously documented trends showed year to year reductions in the activity levels of Cs in bush-tree and meadow nectar honey types [19,37]. This finding was confirmed by following the Cs activity in nectar honey types up to 1996. Ten years after the serious cesium contamination event of the Chernobyl accident, Cs activity in nectar honey types has become very low, frequently below the instrument detection limit. On the basis of data presented in Table 10.3, it is evident that for each successive year, Cs activity in nectar... 

Table 10.3 Activities of and (Bqkg ) in Croatian nectar honey types (mixed, meadow, or bush-tree honey) collected between 1990 and 1996, Gorski Kotar area excluded...

Similar Cs behavior was found in different (heather, honeydew, mixed meadow and honeydew) honey samples collected in Germany (Table 10.5), as well as in mixed meadow/chestnut and honeydew honey samples collected in Slovenia (Table 10.6). Different cesium activities have been found for the same year for the same or very similar types of honey in both countries. Such results could be explained by the fact that samples of honey were collected from different locations, locations that have been contaminated differently by cesium during the main fallout events in the past. The Cs activities found in the honey of heather plants (Calluna vulgaris) are significantly higher than in honeydew honey. Heather is considered to be an excellent cesium pollution indicator, and so apparently is... 

The results of these studies examine the difference in the uptake dynamics of bioavaUable inorganic elements from soils into the nectar of flowers versus into the phloem of coniferous trees and passage through the hindgut of aphids into honeydew. The honey from meadow plants would have been obtained by the bees primarily from blossoms. Another insect feeding on coniferous trees produced the honeydew that was then stolen by the bees. 

Without exception, the concentration of all measured elements was significantly higher (at level P<0.01, only for Zn at level P<0.05) in honeydew honey compared to meadow nectar honey or mixed honey. In comparison with meadow nectar honeys, honeydew honey showed the... 

Mixed meadow and honeydew honey demonstrated an 11.4 percent transfer of from soil, 1.85 percent for Cs, 1.92 percent for Pb, and... 

---