Contamination Of Honey Research Articles

Pollen Contamination of Honey by Bees inside the Hive

Abstract This paper aims to assess to what degree and in what way the brood chamber affects the pollen content of the honey. Twenty-nine pieces of comb containing only honey were cut from different frames of hives. The percentage of cells in each frame occupied by the brood chamber and the distance between these cells and the cut piece were recorded. A honey sample was extracted from each comb piece, avoiding any contamination with pollen, its sediment examined under the microscope and its botanical constituents identified and counted. The results show that the pollen content of honey was higher in samples from frames containing brood or pollen cells; in these samples the pollen content was positively correlated with the amount of these cells in the frame and the proximity of the honey to them. The proportion of pollen grains from principally nectariferous plants was lower in honeys with a high pollen content.

Multiplication of Clostridium botulinum in dead honey-bees and bee pupae, a likely source of heavy contamination of honey

Multiplication of Clostridium botulinum in honey-bees was examined to explain the heavy contamination of honey which may occur with this pathogen. When dead bees were inoculated with C. botulinum spores at levels of 10 2−10 3 and incubated aerobically for 10 days, the organisms increased to 10 4−10 5. When botulinum spores were inoculated together with Bacillus alvei, the growth of most strains was significantly enhanced (10 5−10 7). Similar results were obtained in bee pupae, but not in bee larvae. The heavy contamination of honey with botulinum spores that we have sometimes encountered may have been caused by contamination from dead bees in which C. botulinum had proliferated.

Detection of Clostridium botulinum in natural sweetening

Various sugar products were examined for contamination with C. botulinum spores. Type A, B and C spores were detected in three of 56 samples of sugar for apiculture, which may attest the significance of bee-feed as a source of contamination of honey. The heavy contamination of honey with C. botulinum spores sometimes encountered, however, can not be explained unless some other factors, e.g., that allowing germination and multiplication of the spores somewhere during honey production, are found. Type A spores were detected in some samples of raw sugar and molasses and also in two of 41 samples of brown sugar lump, but not in refined sugar or other various samples taken at a sugar factory or in sugar cane left on the field in Okinawa. The fact that some natural sweetenings are contaminated with C. botulinum spores, even in low concentrations, may be food-hygienically important.

Studies on the Fate/Loss (?) of Sulfathiazole in Concentrated Carbohydrate (Honey) Solutions

Sulfathiazole (ST) contamination of honey has recently become a major concern for regulatory agencies. Although numerous chemical methods to test for ST in honey have been developed, none of these methods has examined the binding of ST to reducing carbohydrate (Maillard reaction) in honey. While ST treated at pH 3.6 and 80°C in water was completely stable over a thirty day period, ST treated under similar conditions in the presence of excess reducing carbohydrate (D-glucose and D-fructose) resulted in greater than 50% loss of free sulfathiazole in only 65 hours. Free ST also disappeared at slower rates from reducing carbohydrate solutions held at room temperature. ST bound to carbohydrate had different chromatographic properties from free ST and did not react with Bratton-Marshall reageant. Problems associated with present rapid detection methods for free ST in honey were investigated and a modified procedure to detect free ST to levels of 125 ppb developed. Since all chemical methods for ST analysis in honey did not detect carbohydrate bound ST, these methods not only underestimated the original ST contamination of honey but also could underestimate the antibiotic contamination of honey if bound ST acted as a reservoir for free ST and/or bound ST still maintained antibiotic activity.