Abstract
Abstract: Stingless bee honeys were extracted from 27 nests in the West and South of Venezuela and analysed by HPLC for sugar content. The concentration and ratios of the three frequently occurring sugars, fructose, glucose and maltose, were related to the entomological origin of the samples. The fact that an unusual high maltose content was characteristic for Trigonini honeys was further explored to propose its use as a predictor of entomological origin. A dendrogram with normalized values of maltose was successfully used to cluster honeys of the same stingless bee tribe, except for Scaptotrigona spp. Three maltose ratios were calculated and all of them were distinctive for Meliponini, Trigonini and the intermediate Scaptotrigona spp. honeys. The hexoses‐to‐maltose ratio is the proposed predictor because differences at the tribe level are easily observed without further statistical analysis; in the present set of honeys, Scaptotrigona spp. presented values between 11 and 12, other Trigonini were lower than 3 and Meliponini were higher than 15.
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