Simplified method for the determination of organochlorine pesticides in honey.

A method is described for the detection and quantitative determination of organochlorine pesticides in honey. After extraction with hexane, the pesticides were cleaned-up by adsorption chromatography on a Florisil Sep-Pak cartridge and eluted with 15% diethyl ether in hexane. The detection of organochlorine pesticides was performed by capillary gas chromatography with electron-capture detection. The quantification limit obtained for different pesticides ranged from 0.56 to 2.78 micrograms kg-1 and recoveries from fortified honey samples averaged 89.6%.