Honey bees are irreplaceable and useful pollinators of agricultural plants. Beekeeping is nowadays very popular because of its ecological and economical consequences as well as its health benefits for well-balanced nutrition. The aim of the study was to determine total mercury content and its accumulation in the body of bees and their products (bee pollen, bee propolis) of selected locations in eastern Slovakia and evaluation of obtained results. The tested bees and their products were collected from apiaries located in Jaklovce (Middle Spiš region). This locality has been polluted by heavy industry for many years. We carried out an analysis to determine total concentration of mercury in the homogenized samples (0.005-0.01 g) using a cold-vapour AAS analyser AMA 254 (Altec, Czech Republic) with a detection limit of 0.5 ng/g. Mean difference between duplicates were up to 5%. Statistical analyses were performed using descriptive data analysis. The significance of each variable was verified by LSD test. We used Pearson correlation coefficients at significance level of p˂0.05 (weak statistical significance) and p˂0.01 (very strong statistical significance) available at STATGRAPHICS 5.1. The content of mercury in honey bees from apiary in locality 1 varied over a value 0.142338±0.000052 mg.kg^-1 of dry matter (DM). The mercury content in honey bees from apiary in locality 2 varied over a value 0.148365±0.000048 mg.kg^-1 of DM. The content of mercury in bee pollen from apiary in locality 1 varied over a value 0.001846±0.000046 mg.kg^-1 of dry matter (DM). The mercury content in bee pollen from apiary in locality 2 varied over a value 0.005532±0.000051 mg.kg^-1 of DM. The content of mercury in bee propolis from apiary in locality 1 varied over a value 0.004773±0.000049 mg.kg^-1 of dry matter (DM). The mercury content in bee pollen from apiary in locality 2 varied over a value 0.003095±0.000053 mg.kg^-1 of DM. The content of mercury in honey bees from apiary in locality 1 varied over a value 0.142338±0.000052 mg.kg^-1 of dry matter (DM). Mercury content in bee pollen was 0.001846±0.000046 mg.kg^-1 (was about 77.11 times smaller compared to honey bees) and in bee propolis was 0.004773±0.000049 mg.kg^-1 (was about 29.82 times smaller compared to honey bees) of DM. The content of mercury in honey bees from apiary in locality 2 varied over a value 0.148365±0.000048 mg.kg^-1 of dry matter (DM). Mercury content in bee pollen was 0.005532±0.000051 mg.kg^-1 (was about 26.82 times smaller compared to honey bees) and in bee propolis was 0.003095±0.000053 mg.kg^-1 (was about 47.94 times smaller compared to honey bees) of DM. The evaluation of total mercury content is very important regards to the protection of bees and not least to protect the health of people as consumers of food products containing residues of industrial production. Very strong statistical significance of the correlations of mercury content was confirmed between all evaluated parameters (locality, honey bees, bee pollen and bee propolis).

Key words: mercury, honey bee, bee pollen, bee propolis, bioaccumulation.