Honey Characterization

According to Portuguese law (Law-Decree n° 214/2003, September 18), honey is defined as a natural sweet substance, produced by Apis mellifera bees, from the nectar of plants, secretions of its living parts or from the excretion of sucking insects of plants.  

Honey bees form nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and store it as a primary food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive. According to the source, honey can be divided into different types  

Honeydew honey, that is prepared from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects (Hemiptera) and floral honey made by honeybees from the nectar of blossoms. 

According to the method of production or presentation, honey may be classified as comb honey, honey with pieces of honeycomb, honey drained, centrifuged honey, pressed honey, or filtered honey. 

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Conte, L. S., Miorini, M., Giomo, A., Bertacco, G., and Zironi, R. (1998). Evaluation of some fixed components for unifloral honey characterization. /. Agric. Food Chem. 46,1844-1849. Cordelia, C., Moussa, L, Martel, A. C., Sbirrazzuoli, N., and Lizzani-Cuvelier, L. (2002). Recent developments in food characterisation and adulteration detection Techniques oriented perspectives. J. Agric. Food Chem. 50,1751-1764. 

Marshall, T. and Williams, K. M. (1987). Electrophoresis of honey Characterization of trace proteins from a complex biological matrix by silver staining. Anal. Biochem. 167,301-303. 

This chapter presents a comprehensive review of previous research on mead production. It will focus on honey characterization and mead production. The first section covers honey composition and the way this affects honey properties, as well as important parameters that are indicators of honey quality. The second section discusses mead production, including fermentative microorganisms, fermentation conditions, and required postfermentation adjustments and maturation conditions. The final section focuses on the problems that must be surpassed and what the future holds for mead production. 

I. Honey characterization—as the raw material of mead its attributes greatly affect the production and characteristics of mead important parameters that are indicators of honey quality are also discussed and... 

Chemical Composition, Characterization, and Differentiation of Honey Botanical and Geographical Origins... 

Honey has been produced in Lithuania since the ancient times. Baltrusaityte et ah (2007a,b) recently reported antimicrobial and antioxidant properties of Lithuanian honeys. Kaskoniene et ah (2010) characterized the carbohydrate composition of Lithuanian honeys obtained from various sources and determined if there was any relationship between pollen content and the content of the carbohydrate in the honey. 

Each plant tissue tends to have an obviously distinctive profile of flavonoids. The flavonoid content can reach about 0.5% in pollen, 10% in propolis, and about 6 mg/kg in honey. Havonoid aglycones appear to be present only in propolis and honey, while pollen contains flavanols in herosidic forms. The flavonoids in honey and propolis have been identified as flavanones and flavanones/flavanols (Campos et ah, 1990). The antimi-crobially active flavanone pinocembrine was foimd to be a major flavonoid in honey (Bogdanov, 1989). Amiot et ah (1989) studied two blossom and two honeydew Swiss honey samples and foimd that pinocembrine was the main flavonoid. Pinocembrine concentration varied between 2 and 3 mg/kg (Bogdanov, 1989). Berahia et ah (1993) analyzed sunflower honey samples and detected six flavone/flavols, four flavanone/ flavols, and pinocembrin, of which pinocembrin is the main flavonoid. The flavonoids in sunflower honey and propolis were characterized and assessed for their effects on hepatic drug-metabolizing enzymes and benzo [fl]pyrene-DNA adduct formation (Sabatier et ah, 1992 Siess et ah, 1996). 

Babacan, S. and Rand, A. G. (2007). Characterization of honey amylase. /. Food Sci. 72, C050-C055. 

Cordelia, C., Faucon, J. P., Cabrol-Bass, D., and Sbirrazzuoli, N. (2003a). Application of DSC as a tool for honey floral species characterization and adulteration detection. /. Therm. Anal. Calorim. 71, 279-290. 

Cordelia, C. B., Militao, J. S., Clement, M. C., and Cabrol-Bass, D. (2003b). Honey haracter-ization and adulteration detection by pattern recognition applied on HPAEC-PAD profiles. 1. Honey floral species characterization. /. Agric. Food Chem. 51,3234-3242. 

Cotte, J. F., Casabianca, H., Giroud, B., Albert, M., Lheritier, J., and Grenier-Loustalot, M. F. (2004). Characterization of honey amino acid profiles using high-pressure liquid chromatography to control authenticity. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 378, 1342-1350. 

Hernandez, O. M., Fraga, J. M. G., Jimenez, A. 1., Jimenz, F., and Arias, J. J. (2005). Characterization of honey from the Canary Islands Determination of the mineral content by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Food Chem. 93,449 58. 

Serra Bonvehi, J. and Ventura Coll, F. (1995). Characterization of citrus honey produced in... 

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