A New Approach for Determination of the Botanical Origin of Monofloral Bee Honey, Combining Mineral Content, Physicochemical Parameters, and Self-Organizing Maps.

Tsvetomil Voyslavov,Elisaveta Mladenova,Ralitsa Balkanska

doi:10.3390/molecules26237219

Tsvetomil Voyslavov, Elisaveta Mladenova + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26237219

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Abstract

A new approach for the botanical origin determination of monofloral bee honey is developed. The methodology combines mineral content and physicochemical parameters determination with intelligent statistics such as self-organizing maps (SOMs). A total of 62 monofloral bee honey samples were analysed, including 31 linden, 14 rapeseed, 13 sunflower, and 4 acacia. All of them were harvested in 2018 and 2019 from trusted beekeepers, after confirming their botanical origin, using melissopalynological analysis. Nine physicochemical parameters were determined, including colour, water content, pH, electrical conductivity, hydroxymethylfurfural content, diastase activity, specific optical rotation, invertase activity, and proline. The content of thirty chemical elements (Ag, Al, As, B, Ba, Bi, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Ga, In, K, Li, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, P, Pb, Rb, S, Se, Sr, Te, V, and Zn) was measured using ICP-OES, ICP-MS, and FAAS as instrumental techniques. The visualisation of the SOMs shows an excellent separation of honey samples in five well-defined clusters—linden, rapeseed, acacia, sunflower, and polyfloral honey—using the following set of 16 descriptors: diastase activity, hydroxymethylfurfural content, invertase activity, pH, specific optical rotation, water content, Al, B, Cr, Cs, K, Na, Ni, Rb, V, and Zn.

Highlights

Honey is a multicomponent product, which contains, as its main substituents, carbohydrates (70–80%), water, small amounts of enzymes, proteins, organic acids, different chemical elements, vitamins, lipids, aromatic compounds, and biologically active substances
The amount of all of the constituent components in bee honey depends on many factors, some of which are related to the type of bee that produced it; others relate to the competence, techniques, and good practices of the beekeeper and honey producer
The bee honey samples used in the study were obtained from reliable producers, members of The Bulgarian Honey Producers Association, and were harvested in 2018 and 2019

Summary

Introduction

Honey is a multicomponent product, which contains, as its main substituents, carbohydrates (70–80%), water, small amounts of enzymes, proteins, organic acids, different chemical elements, vitamins, lipids, aromatic compounds, and biologically active substances. The complexity of all of these factors makes choosing a methodical approach to identifying the different types of monofloral honeys by botanical origin and authenticity difficult [3,4]. Honey is a natural product that has been used as food and medicine since ancient times. It is produced by the processing of nectar by honeybees. Honey is divided into monofloral (obtained predominantly from the nectar of one plant species) and polyfloral (obtained from different types of floral nectar). Monofloral honey, predominantly containing pollen from one plant species, is of higher quality, and is more expensive than its polyfloral counterparts, which reinforces the need for an appropriate analysis technique, through which identifying the authenticity of monofloral honey would be made possible

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