Classification of acacia, rape and multifloral Hungarian honey types

Abstract

The composition of honey is mostly determined by the species-specific characteristics of flowering plants, which is reflected in the significant deviations in composition of honey varieties. The high-quality acacia honey is assessed based on both physical-chemical parameters and melissopalynology. The appearance of rape pollen in acacia honey makes the acacia honey be sorted into the multifloral honey category. Over carrying out melissopalynology, the149 samples of various honeys (acacia, rape and multifloral) have also been analysed by using physical-chemical and elemental analysis. Multivariate data analysis revealed that multifloral honey is much closer to acacia honey than to rape honey, as it can be observed from the examined unique parameters. By the PCA (Principal Component Analysis) analysis based on united set of physico-chemical and melissopalynology results the acacia and rape honey samples are entirely separated for each other, while multifloral honey samples are very close to acacia honey group and partially overlap with it. On ignoring the pollen analysis and based on the rest of the results, the multifloral honey category is almost indistinguishable from the declared and verified acacia honey category.