A preliminary study on the occurance of Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids in Italian honey

In the last decade, the health safety of honey has been taken into consideration as it can be contaminated by drugs used to protect bees against a variety of brood disease and or by natural toxins like pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs). Samples of polyflora honey were obtained from local beekeepers (70) of the Veneto region or from the market, and lycopsamine,heliotrine, echimidine, senecionine, seneciphylline and retrorsine were measured using a liquid chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometry method to evaluete the contamination of Veneto honey.