Honeydew, honey from

Concentrations of selected elements and radionuclide activities in different types of honey (predominantly nectar honey from meadows, mixed meadow nectar and honeydew honey, and honeydew honey from hr and spruce forests) from the Gorski Kotar area are presented in Table 10.10. Among all of the studied elements, potassium comprised about 90 percent or more of the total cation amount in honey. The mean potassium content was the lowest in meadow honey ( 0.09 percent), followed by mixed honeys ( 0.15 percent), and the highest in honeydew honey ( 0.28 percent). Strontium and nickel concentrations in honey were the lowest in meadow honey and the highest in honeydew honey. Compared to " K, the concentrations of Sr and Ni were about three orders of magnitude lower, even hundred of thousands times lower in comparison to the total potassium content. 

Lglesias, M. T., de Lorenzo, C., Polo, M. D., Martin-Alvarez, P. J., and Pueyo, E. (2004). Usefulness of amino acid composition to discriminate between honeydew and floral honeys. Application to honeys from a small geographic area. /. Agric. Food Client. 52, 84-89. 

The crystallization of turanose was first reported by Pacsu and the writer24 as follows In 1918 one of us (H.) found an abundant supply of the rare melezitose in a certain kind of honeydew honey and from it he prepared a small quantity of sirupy turanose in the hope of crystallizing it. Other samples of turanose sirup were prepared subsequently from this stock of melezitose by other workers in the same laboratory. Recently it was observed by D. H. Brauns that one of these sirups, the exact history of which is not now known, had crystallized after standing many years. By the use of these crystals to nucleate turanose sirups which we have lately prepared from melezitose, it has been possible to obtain a rapid crystallization of the sugar in abundant quantities. To this quotation the writer can now add the information, kindly supplied recently by Mr. C. F. Walton, Jr., that Mr. Walton prepared the other samples of turanose sirup. ... 

The melezitose (Pfanstiehl) used in our experiments was isolated from honeydew honey, one of the important sources discovered by Hudson and Sherwood.10... 

Honeydew honey is produced not from floral nectar but from the sweet liquid excreted by plant-lice (Aphididae), jumping plant-lice (Psyllidae), and bark-lice or scale-insects 0Coccidae). These insects feed on plant juices and their excretions fall on the foliage of trees like dew, hence the term honeydew. ... 

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. 

Two new sesquiterpenoids of the picrotoxane group are amotin (208) and amoenin (209). In the course of an investigation of the toxic substances of the honeydew honey excreted by a sap-sucking insect which feeds on Coriaria arborea Lindsey, the two dihydro-derivatives of tutin (210) and hyenanchin (211) have been identified.Included in this paper are the n.m.r. spectral assignments of a number of compounds belonging to the picrotoxane series. Another milestone in sesquiterpenoid chemistry has been passed by the successful synthesis of (-)-picrotoxinin (212) starting from (-)-carvone (Scheme 33).One of the crucial steps in this fairly long synthesis was the double lactonization towards the end of the route. 

A control series of nectar honey types was collected during the summer months from 1990 to 1996 from the whole Croatian territory. Since 1993, samples of honey have been collected regularly in the summer and early autumn from the Gorski Kotar area, Croatia. A long-time series of various types of honeydew honey and heather honey was collected in Austria, Germany, and Slovenia from 1952 through 1995. 

Honey samples were collected mechanically, by extracting honey from combs. Honey types (nectar honey, mixed nectar and honeydew honey, and honeydew honey) were identified on the basis of pollen analyses [34] and electrical conductivity measurements [35] carried out by using a multirange conductivity meter HI 8733 (Hanna Instruments). Radionuclide activity and selected element concentrations in honey were determined by gamma-ray spectrometry and the XRF method. 

The majority of sampled honey was collected from a mixture of silicate and carbonate terrains. Less than one-third of honey samples originated from well-known, strictly silicate or carbonate terrain. Because only a small number of well-defined samples of soil or honey were available, only the t-test was used in statistical evaluation of collected data. Statistical analyses of nectar honey compared to soil type were not done because of the small number of samples collected from the strictly silicate or carbonate terrains. However, no significant differences have been found for the mixed nectar and honeydew honey as well. Taking into account the aforementioned facts, the average element concentrations in all of the soil samples measured were taken for transfer factor calculations. 

As was mentioned earlier, honeydew honey can be used as an indicator of pollution over a very long time. Honey is a stable product, lasting for decades or even hundreds of years, if properly stored. By measuring in archived samples of collected honey, it was thought it would be possible to retrospectively detect radioactive contamination events. Numerous honey samples that had been collected and kept by beekeepers over a period from 1952 to 1995 were found for locations in Central European countries located between the North sea and the Adriatic sea (Austria, Germany, and Slovenia). Analysis of these honey samples detected Cs activities, which were corrected for radioactive decay and recalculated on July 1 of each year of the sample s collection. The Cs determination in Austrian spruce honeydew honey samples collected in the Alps region from 1952 to 1994 (mainly in a circle of radius 30 km around Lunz am See)... 

Similar Cs behavior was found in different (heather, honeydew, mixed meadow and honeydew) honey samples collected in Germany (Table 10.5), as well as in mixed meadow/chestnut and honeydew honey samples collected in Slovenia (Table 10.6). Different cesium activities have been found for the same year for the same or very similar types of honey in both countries. Such results could be explained by the fact that samples of honey were collected from different locations, locations that have been contaminated differently by cesium during the main fallout events in the past. The Cs activities found in the honey of heather plants (Calluna vulgaris) are significantly higher than in honeydew honey. Heather is considered to be an excellent cesium pollution indicator, and so apparently is... 

The results of these studies examine the difference in the uptake dynamics of bioavaUable inorganic elements from soils into the nectar of flowers versus into the phloem of coniferous trees and passage through the hindgut of aphids into honeydew. The honey from meadow plants would have been obtained by the bees primarily from blossoms. Another insect feeding on coniferous trees produced the honeydew that was then stolen by the bees. 

The lowest transfers were found into meadow honey. Without exception, transfer factors from soil into honey for all of the elements measured were significantly higher into mixed floral meadow and forest honeys (containing both nectar and honeydew) than into nectar meadow honey. Rb and Cs showed significantly higher (at P< 0.001) transfers into mixed honeys compared to honey from meadows, although rubidium transfer into meadow honey was still very low (0.197 percent). Only (6.73 percent) and Pb (1.28 percent) showed transfers greater than 1 percent into meadow honey, followed by Cu (0.859 percent) and Ca (0.583 percent). 

Mixed meadow and honeydew honey demonstrated an 11.4 percent transfer of from soil, 1.85 percent for Cs, 1.92 percent for Pb, and... 

Among the honey types studied, honeydew honey exhibited the best indicator capabilities of all of the elements and radionuclides. By comparison with the aforementioned types of honey, the transfer of Cs and Rb into honeydew honey was an order of magnitude higher, with transfers of 8.56 and 1.50 percent, respectively. Transfers for (21.1 percent), Pb (5.42 percent), Cu (3.85 percent), Ca (2.48 percent), Cr (1.34 percent), and Ni (<0.960) nearly equalled or exceeded 1 percent. On the other hand, the soil macroelement Fe showed a very low transfer (0.039 percent) from soils into honeydew honey. Strontium showed a similar behavior (<0.042 percent), so it seems that honey could not be used very successfully as an indicator of environmental pollution with strontium radioactive isotopes. The results show that samples of honey, especially honeydew honey, can indicate the consequences of global pollution events as well as events on a local scale. 

Transfer of radionuclides and selected elements from the youngest fir and spruce branch parts in honeydew honey... 

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