QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF SOME EGYPTIAN AND SAUDI ARABIA HONEYS

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the physicochemical properties of Egyptian cotton monofloral honey, and compare it with Saudi Arabia acacia (salam) honey. Cotton honey produced from cotton plants (Jossypium barbadense) by hybrid carniolan bees Apis mellifera carnica, while salam honey produced by Apis mellifera jamanitica bees. Three cotton honey samples were collected in (September 2014) from Sharkeia governorate, Egypt. In addition, three honey samples from salam plant (Acacia ehneberingiana) were collected during the blooming period (May, 2015) from Sabia district, the south region of Saudi Arabia. It could be concluded that salam honey had the highest viscosity values than the cotton honey presented 18000-16250 cps, respectively. The average results of water content were (22.2-17.2 %), pH (3.81-3.79), total acidity (38.5-42.0 meq/kg), HMF (11.65-246 mg/kg), total amino acids (1.5-3.57 g/100g), total minerals content (0.80-0.36%), for cotton and salam honeys, respectively. The average results of sugar composition for cotton and salam honeys were (42.66-34.3, 37.43-37.7 and 3.0-7.3%) for Glucose, Fructose and Sucrose, respectively. For minerals content, K, Ca, Na and Mg were superior of all tested minerals in both of cotton and salam honeys. It's cleared that B1 and B3 vitamins did not detected in cotton honey. Also, B12 vitamin did not detected in salam honey. Cotton honey was only superior of vitamin B6 giving 0.031 mg/100g. Meanwhile, Vitamins B3, B5 and B9 was in high values in salam honey presented (0.6, 0.2 and 0.1 mg/100g), respectively. Finally, it could be concluded that honeys must correctly classified according to its floral origin. In addition, further studies are needed in order to investigate other floral origins to provide a robust model to classify honey samples from these regions.