Royal Jelly Quality Check

Royal jell is a white part of the bee nest, this substance also have benefit to human health, many method to analyze the quality of this product, one of the honey quality check method use analytical methods. Analytical methods for residues of tetracyclines and acaricides in royal jelly.

After the ban on importations of royal jelly (RJ) from China and the recent increase in the production of European countries, this bee product has gained increasing interest. One of the main concerns for the quality of RJ is the presence of residues of chemicals used in beekeeping, but very few studies are found in literature on the analysis of this particular matrix.

Two analytical methods are proposed for the determination of acaricide and tetracycline residues in RJ. For the determination of acaricides, two sample preparation methods were established: the first one requires an alkaline dissolution of the sample, an extraction on a copolymeric sorbent and the subsequent elution with organic solvents; the other one requires mixing the sample with diatomaceous earth, a solid-liquid extraction with acetone:hexane and a florisil SPE purification. The second method is somewhat slower but preserves the analytes from alkaline breakdown. Both the sample preparation methods employ a GC/ECD determination. The method was tested for Brompropylate, Coumaphos, Fluvalinate and Flumethrine.

The method for tetracyclines requires an alkaline dissolution of the RJ sample and the solid phase extraction of the analytes on a hydrophilic-lipophilic copolymer, followed by an elution in acid solution. The eluate is then injected in an HPLC-DAD system with detection at 353 nm. The method was tested for Oxytetracycline, Tetracycline and Chlortetracycline. Demeclocycline can be used as internal standard.