Analytical studies on honey

Mistry, RP

Abstract

The floral and the geographical origins of honey can be determined
by microscopic examination of the pollen present, however this technique
cannot be applied to highly strained or pollen free honeys. Thus,
there is a need for a chemical technique that can be applied to such
samples. This present work was undertaken with the help of the British
Beekeepers Association and their members, who provided honey samples
of known origin within the United Kingdom for chemical evaluation
and comparison.
There were 192 samples of English honey from the U. K. survey
and an additional 69 samples including those of foreign origin obtained
from various sources.
A selection of 11 foreign and 5 English honeys were examined
for proteins present by the technique of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis
in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulphate. This approach
was abandoned since preliminary studies indicated that a correlation
between the proteins and the geographical origin was not possible.
For 256 samples out of the 261, the free amino acids and the
pollens present were examined.
The free ninhydrin positive substances were separated by ionexchange
chromatography and then concentrated. Forty ninhydrin positive
substances were detected by a combination of paper electrophoresis
and chromatography and 28 of these compounds were identified. quantitative
measurements of the concentration of 13 detectable amino acids were
made on an automatic amino acid analyser. The average concentration
of the 13 amino acids of the 191 samples of the U. K. survey and those
of the 5 predominant pollens of the U. K. have been given in Table A. The major floral sources of-each honey were confirmed by quantitative
pollen analysis of the original sample.
It was found that by performing discriminant analysis using
the computer package Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
that the amino acid concentration measurements could be correlated
to the floral source of the samples examined, provided the sub-group
samples were sufficiently large. The overall pattern of floral sources
coupled with the detection of ninhydrin positive substances can be
used successfully to categorise unspecified samples. This is then
followed by correlation, in some cases, with amino acid concentration
measurements using the SPSS to predict a definite geographical region.
The potential role of using the SPSS predictive classifications
to evaluate the following aspects of honey production were indicated
to be successful. These aspects were: honeydew and nectar honeyst
feeding sugar to honeybees, the effects of heating honey, adulteration
especially with foreign honeys and/or commercial sugar products, commercial
processing methods and floral source with reference to plant family.

Citation

Mistry, R. Analytical studies on honey. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Aug 16, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 16, 2011
• Award Date: Jan 1, 1987