Beeswax is a pharmaceutical and cosmetic commodity listed in the U.S. and EU Pharmacopeias. It is also widely used as a food additive (E 901), for example, for the coating of fresh fruits, dried fruits, sweets, and cheeses, as well as a component of different polishing waxes. Beeswax is a very complex mixture of lipophilic compounds. Mono-, di-, and triesters of long-chain aliphatic alcohols with fatty acids or hydroxy-fatty acids constitute the largest fraction representing ca. 65% of the total weight. Free fatty acids, mostly C26 and C30, and longchain hydrocarbons represent ca. 12% each. Other components of beeswax are free hydroxy acids, free aliphatic alcohols, and carotenoids. In ancient times it was believed that beeswax was collected from flowers or made from pollen; it was not until 1744 that H. C. Hornbostel discovered that it is synthesized by four pairs of wax-secreting epidermal glands on the ventral side of worker bees’ abdomens. Bees use wax mainly for building the honeycombs; they remove, reshape, mold, and use it over and over again. The combs are literally the nursery, walls, storage pantry, home, pharmacy, and dance floor for the colony.1 Pesticides can enter the hive either directly or indirectly.2,3 Various acaricides, such as coumaphos, amitraz, and fluvalinate, are applied in beekeeping for Varroa mite control, but other environmental contaminants also find their way into the hive when bees fly around searching for nectar and pollen. For this reason honey bees and bee products have been used as bioindicators of environmental pollution in several countries.4-9 An emerging problem for apiculture is caused by the fact that beeswax is widely recycled when establishing a new hive, thus leading to a progressive accumulation of pesticides in it. In several studies conducted in different countries, residues of numerous pesticides have been found in beeswax.3,10-16 There are only a few methods described in the literature for the analysis of pesticide residues in beeswax. The most reported methodology is the single-residue one.14 There are some other methods for the quantitative analysis of particular groups of pesticides, such as acaricides11,12 or lipophilic pesticides,17 using either LC or GC techniques.2,3,18 Mullin et al. analyzed 259 real samples from beehives in the United States covering a very broad scope of GC- and LC-amenable analytes. A total of 87 different pesticides and metabolites were identified using the QuEChERS approach as sample preparation method. Nevertheless, the evaluation of the analytical method employed was not published.19 The methodologies employed in the studies mentioned above involved mainly beeswax dissolution followed by liquid-liquid extraction and solid phase extraction for cleanup. A simple variation of the QuEChERS method20 allowing the determination of 51 pesticides in beeswax by LC and GC is presented in this work. Thirteen GC-amenable and 38 LCamenable pesticides employed in this study were selected on the basis of their relevance for beeswax as reflected by the frequency of residue findings in beeswax and other apiarian products according to the literature and the pesticides-online