Honey is a ‘natural product’ and EU regulates honey under the Council Directive 2001/110/EC. According to the European Union (EU); the food Codex Alimentarius and various other international honey standards - honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance. Honey bees fly two to three miles from their hive to find sources of food (nectar and pollen). They will usually forage during daylight. Pollen and nectar are collected from certain flowering plants, carried back to the hive, stored in wax cells, and used as a protein-rich food source for the colony members. Bees may be killed while foraging on blooming plants that have been treated by certain pesticides. The greatest hazard, however, is from insecticides, such as carbaryl (Sevin), Methyl parathion (Penncap-M) and others that may be unintentionally carried with pollen back to the hive. Some of these pesticides are not stable in the environment or metabolised to different forms and this is probably the main reason why they were detected rarely and at lower concentrations in beehive products. Therefore, identification and confirmation of metabolites of pesticides in honey matrix are also equally relevant. Mass spectrometry technique based on nominal mass is proposed for the screening and identification of metabolites while high resolution mass spectrometry can be effectively used for confirmation of identified metabolites. This study intended to design a workflow in order to Identify and confirm major metabolites/degradation products of pesticides used/ significant in apiculture namely carbaryl in honey matrix. By Nominal mass and accurate mass LC-MS/MS, 3 degradation products of carbaryl is identified and their structural relationship with carbaryl is established by comparing the fragmentation pattern.
