Liquid–liquid extraction procedure for nonvolatile pesticides determination in acacia honey as environmental biomonitor

In recent years, bees’ products (nectar, honey, beeswax, pollen) have been considered as potential biomonitors of air pollution. The efficacy of these matrices, especially honey, in environmental biomonitoring has been demonstrated in many studies to be due to its medicinal properties. A multiresidue method based on liquid–liquid extraction using ethyl acetate, followed by an analysis using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of pesticides, was developed in this paper. Afterwards, the method was validated, and results showed that the intraday and interday relative standard deviation was below 5%, and the recoveries obtained generally ranged from 68% to 104%. Furthermore, the method showed high precision and sensitivity for all target compounds, with detection and quantification limits lower than 3 and 9 ng g−1, respectively. Residues from a range of pesticides were detected in each of the samples collected. Pesticide contamination was highest in samples collected from the Akkar and Koura area, which are both well known for their agricultural production. In contrast, samples obtained from Bcharre showed the lowest pesticide contamination. Finally, analysis of real honey samples collected from Lebanon shows the potentiality of honey as a biomonitor for assessing air pollution.