For authorization status of common active substances, see Table 1; \* in bold, MRL exceedance; \*\* amitraz metabolite; NA, not available; <sup>a</sup> authorized/approved at time of sampling; <sup>b</sup> not approved; <sup>c</sup> dimethoate metabolite; <sup>d</sup> chlorpyrifos ethyl metabolite.

**Figure 3.** Graph showing determinations of active substances in pollen beebread.

In honey, MRLs were surpassed for three active substances. More specifically, in one case, coumaphos (as the sum of coumaphos and its metabolite coumaphos oxon) was quantified slightly above its MRL, while the other exceedances were registered for imidacloprid (two cases at 286.8 and 784.7 ng/g) and pirimiphos-methyl (Table 2). In all cases in which exceptionally high concentrations of pesticides encountered were associated with honey samples originating from honeycombs, honeybee death incidents were observed. The latter might postulate misapplications of PPPs, drift phenomena carrying substances away from application fields, applications during bees flying, or even deliberate application of these PPPs to harm the honeybee colonies. It is noteworthy that banned active substances were also detected at quantifiable concentrations. Among them were two organophosphates, cadusafos and ethoprofos, the triazolobenzothiazole active substance tricyclazole, and the pyrethroid cyfluthrin. Nevertheless, for some of the detections in the presented research, we cannot exclude the previously contaminated honeycomb as a potential contributing factor since incoming information from the beekeepers reported long-term use of the same honeycombs. Similarly, MRL exceedances were observed in pollen for clothianidin, coumaphos (the highest concentration observed in one beebread sample), dimethoate, omethoate, tebuconazole, methomyl and pirimiphos-methyl (Table 2).

Banned pesticides were also detected in pollen and beebread samples. These were fenpropathrin, methomyl, and permethrin. The above results confirm the higher pesticide load of pollen in comparison to the respective levels in honey. Hence, pollen, though far less consumed than honey, deserves noticeable attention, as it is more prone to environmental contaminants. Another valuable conclusion is that pollen is a better marker of environmental contamination of the sampled areas, particularly of pesticides, but also inorganic contaminants, as reported in recent works of our group [15,28].
