*3.8. Fatty Acids Composition*

For the bee pollen samples analyzed in this study, 19 fatty acids were quantified by the GC-MS method. The total content of fatty acids of the bee pollen samples varied between 81.69 μg/g (sample 10) and 645.72 μg/g (sample 24) (Table 4). The unsaturated fatty acids were predominant (UFA; 62.65–927.50 μg/g), of which levels of 7.51–88.69 μg/g were determined for monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and 43.86–838.82 μg/g for polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). The main MUFAs were oleic acid (C18:1 (Z)-octadec-9-enoic acid) and 11-eicosenoic acid (C20:1 (cis-11) (Z)-icos-11-enoic acid), which were also reported as prevalent in *Brassica napus* pollen from India [27]. Of the PUFAs, γ-linoleic acid (C18:3 (all-cis-6,9,12) octadeca-6,9,12-trienoic acid) and linoleic acid (C18:2 (all-cis-9,12) (9Z,12Z)-octadeca-9,12-dienoic acid) were determined in high levels in all pollen samples. By comparison, in 18 bee pollen samples from Turkey and Romania, Mărgăoan et al. [51] determined a higher content of α-linoleic acid than linoleic acid. In our study, α-linoleic acid was quantified only in samples 3 and 4. Palmitic acid (C16:0 hexadecanoic acid) and stearic acid (C18:0 octadecanoic acid) were determined as the main saturated fatty acids (SFA); these two fatty acids were also reported as the predominant saturated fatty acids in the bee pollen from 11 different floral sources from Taiwan [25] and in commercial bee pollen samples from Colombia, Italy and Spain [22]. C15:0 pentadecanoic acid and C17:0 heptadecanoic acid were determined in lower amounts and were found in less than half of the bee pollen samples analyzed in this study. When studying the fatty acids profile of bee pollen, the ratio between UFA and SFA is of great importance. It was considered that a value of the UFA/SFA ratio higher than 1 is characteristic of bee pollen with considerable nutritional value, while a value below 1 indicates degradation of unsaturated fatty acids due to storage and dehydration process [50]. For the 24 bee pollen samples analyzed in our study, the UFA/SFA ratio varied between 1.86 and 5.78 and was comparable with the values of 2.2–6.7 reported for the bee pollen from India [27] and the 1.9–2.2 UFA/SFA ratio calculated for commercial bee pollen from Colombia, Italy and Spain [22].




**Table 4.** *Cont.*


