Some physicochemical and microscopic characteristics of ...

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HAL Id: hal-00891310 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00891310 Submitted on 1 Jan 1995 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- entific research documents, whether they are pub- lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Some physicochemical and microscopic characteristics of Greek unifloral honeys A Thrasyvoulou, J Manikis To cite this version: A Thrasyvoulou, J Manikis. Some physicochemical and microscopic characteristics of Greek unifloral honeys. Apidologie, Springer Verlag, 1995, 26 (6), pp.441-452. hal-00891310

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HAL Id: hal-00891310https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00891310

Submitted on 1 Jan 1995

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open accessarchive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come fromteaching and research institutions in France orabroad, or from public or private research centers.

L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, estdestinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documentsscientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,émanant des établissements d’enseignement et derecherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoirespublics ou privés.

Some physicochemical and microscopic characteristics ofGreek unifloral honeys

A Thrasyvoulou, J Manikis

To cite this version:A Thrasyvoulou, J Manikis. Some physicochemical and microscopic characteristics of Greek unifloralhoneys. Apidologie, Springer Verlag, 1995, 26 (6), pp.441-452. �hal-00891310�

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Review article

Some physicochemical and microscopiccharacteristics of Greek unifloral honeys

A Thrasyvoulou J Manikis

1 Laboratory of Apiculture-Sericulture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54006 Thessaloniki;2 Union of Beekeeping Associations of Northern Greece, Prometheus 6, 55134 Kalamaria, Greece

(Received 20 February 1995; accepted 16 May 1995)

Summary — Water content, ash, HMF, diastase activity, electrical conductivity, pH, proline and micro-scopic characteristics of 174 samples of unifloral honeys from thyme, chestnut, cotton, heather, orange,sunflower, pine and fir honeydew have been analysed. Differences among the corresponding valuesare given. The honeys from pine, fir, chestnut and heather have a high pH, electrical conductivity andash, but a low HMF. Thyme honey has high diastase and proline content where as orange honeyshows the lowest values for pH, proline, diastase activity, ash and electrical conductivity. Sunflower andcotton honeys have no distinct characteristics. Predominant pollen was found in thyme, sunflower,heather and chestnut honeys. More than 20 pollen types were found in pine and thyme honeys, 15-20in fir, sunflower and heather and 10-15 in chestnut, cotton and orange honeys.

honey / unifloral / physicochemical characteristics / microscopic characteristics / Greece

INTRODUCTION

The annual honey production of Greece isestimated at 11 000 tons. A large portion isderived from honeydews from pine and firtrees (Santas and Bikos, 1979).

Pine honey constitutes about 60% of thetotal annual honey production and is pro-duced during autumn from honeydewsecreted by the insect Marchalina hellenica(Gennadius), which is restricted to Pinusbrutia Ten and P halepensis Miller (Boden-heimer, 1953; Nikolopoulos, 1959; Kailidis,1965). Another major honeydew honey is

fir honey, which represents 5% of the totalannual production. It is derived from honey-dew produced by the insects Physokermeshemicryphus, Eulecanium sericeum andMindarus abietinus, parasites on Abiescephalonica Loudon and A borisiiregis Mattf,(Santas, 1983).

The large variety of melliferous sourcesalso enables Greece to produce character-istic unifloral nectar honeys. The most well-known is ’Hymettus honey’, which has beenfamous since antiquity (Crane, 1979). Thisis a thyme honey which is mainly producedfrom Thymus capitatus L, T serpyllum L and

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Satureia spp. Thyme honey represents 10%of the total crop (Santas and Bikos, 1979).Heather, sunflower, orange and cotton hon-

eys are also major Greek unifloral honeysthat are produced in appreciable quantitieswhich have not yet been estimated. Heatherhoney is produced mainly from Erica verti-cillata Forskal and E carnea L duringautumn. While sunflower honey fromHelianthus annuus L is significant, it is pro-duced in decreasing quantities because ofthe small monetary rewards associated withit. Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L) andorange (Citrus spp) honeys, on the otherhand, usually appear on the Greek marketmixed with other blossom honeys. Finally,chestnut honey, which is produced from thenectar of Castanea sativa Mill, may be partlyof honeydew origin because of the honey-dew that is abundantly produced by theinsect Myzocallis castanicola Baker (San-tas, 1983).

The physicochemical characteristics ofGreek unifloral honeys were partly exam-ined by Kodounis (1962), Thrasyvoulou andBladenopoulou (1984), Thrasyvoulou(1986), Bakandritsos et al (1993) andThrasyvoulou and Manikis (1993). Most ofthe published material appears in Greekjournals and is not easily accessible to theinternational scientific community. In thispaper, we examine some characteristics ofthe major Greek nectar honeys to furthercontribute to the classification and charac-terization of European unifloral honeys.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sampling

Fresh samples of pine, fir, chestnut, thyme, sun-flower, cotton, heather and orange honeys pro-duced in different regions of Greece were col-lected from beekeepers between 1989 and 1993.Their classification as unifloral honey was basedon their origin (information from beekeepers) and

their organoleptic, microscopic and physico-chemical characteristics. Samples that weredoubtful in origin were excluded from the study.All samples were kept in a refrigerator until chem-ical analysis.

Physicochemical analyses

Water content, ash, HMF and diastase activitywere measured as recommended by the CodexAlimentarius Commission (CAC, 1989).

The electrical conductivity was measuredaccording to Louveaux et al (1973). The resultsare expressed in millisiemens/cm. The pH wasmeasured in a 20% solution. Proline was esti-mated by using the method of Ough (1969) at520 nm, with the aid of a calibration curveobtained from solutions of pure dry proline. Tensamples of each category of honey were anal-ysed for proline content.

Melissopalynological analysis

Melissopalynological analysis was carried outusing the methods established by the Interna-tional Commission of Bee Botany described byLouveaux et al (1978). Counts were expressed aspercentages after counting > 600 pollen grains.The ratio of honeydew elements to the number ofpollen grains (HDE/P) was estimated in honeydewhoneys by counting fungal spores, hyphae, algaeand approximately 300 pollen grains. The fre-quency classes of pollen grains were given aspredominant pollen (> 45%), secondary pollen(16-45%), important minor pollen (3-15%) andminor pollen (1-3%.).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Physicochemical characteristics

Table I shows the mean results and basic

statistics obtained from the physicochemicalanalyses, the percentage of the main pollenin the unifloral honeys and the HDE/P ratioin the honeydew honeys.

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Water content

The majority of Greek honey was found tobe low in moisture and therefore virtuallysafe from fermentation. Average moisturecontent (16.8%) was 4.2% lower than themaximum allowable content for honey bythe CAC (1989). The greatest values werealso lower than the maximum permissiblelevel of 21 % with the exception of 2 sam-ples of heather honey. Fir honey had thelowest moisture content (15.2%) andheather the highest (18.6%).

The average moisture content of Greek

fir, thyme, heather, sunflower, chestnut andorange honeys (16.8%) was lower than thecorresponding value for Italian (17.3%;Accorti et al, 1986) and French (17.6%;Pourtallier and Taliercio, 1970) honeys. Thedistinct low water content of fir honey is inagreement with Accorti et al (1986).

The high water content for heatheragrees with values reported in other coun-tries (Spettoli et al, 1982; Accorti et al, 1986;Serra Bonvehi and Granados Tarres, 1993).Since the majority of heather honeys havehigh water content, the specification of Cal-luna in the compositional standards forhoney is not considered as necessary.

pH

Honey from orange trees had the lowestpH, whereas pine, fir and chestnut honeyshad the highest. Heather honey gave anaverage pH, value of 4.2, placing it betweenflower honeys and honeydew.

The pH values of Greek unifloral hon-eys are in agreement with those found byPourtallier and Taliercio (1970), Accorti et al(1986), Sabatier (1988), and Serra Bon-vehi and Granados Tarres (1993), but notwith those of Mohamed et al (1982) whofound an average pH value of 6.2 in thymehoney.

Electrical conductivity

Honeydew and chestnut honeys had thehighest conductivity while orange honey hadthe lowest. Sunflower and thyme honeysgave similar values; the same was foundfor heather and cotton honeys.

The high mean and wide range of elec-trical conductivity of chestnut honeysare noteworthy. Similar results were reportedby Piazza et al (1986, 1991) who showedthat nectar chestnut had honeydew-like characteristics (high pH, ash and con-ductivity) but differed from honeydew hon-eys by its negative specific rotatory value.The conductivity of Greek heather honeyagrees with that of the French (Pourtallierand Taliercio, 1970), Italian (Persano Oddoet al, 1988) and Spanish (Serra Bonvehiand Granados Tarres,1993) heather hon-eys.

Ash

The highest ash content was found in hon-eydew and chestnut honeys and the low-est in orange nectar honey. Two samplesof fir honey (12.5%) and all the chestnuthoneys exceeded the maximum tolerance ofthe CAC standard. Such high ash contentindicates an increased nutritional value of

honey rather than adulteration (Feinberg,1951 ).

The high values of pH, ash, and electri-cal conductivity of Greek honeydew hon-eys are similar to data given for the averagecomposition of honeydews from other coun-tries (Kirkwood et al, 1960; White et al,1962; Stefanini, 1984; Talpay, 1985; Accortiet al, 1986). These features can be usedto distinguish between honeydew and blos-som honeys as supplementary to their dif-ferent microscopic and organoleptic char-acteristics. The low coefficient of variation

(CV%) of electrical conductivity of pine and

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fir honeys (11.5 and 13.5% respectively)indicates uniformity, which confirms theview that conductivity is a characteristic ofthe plant species from which the honey isderived, and is not influenced by differencesin the weather, year of harvest or geo-graphical origin (Vorwohl, 1964). The cor-relation coefficient (r) of the relationshipbetween ash and electrical conductivity ofthe different types of Greek unifloral honeywas more than 0.97 except in chestnuthoney, where it was 0.41. High linear rela-tionships between the 2 parameters werefound by Accorti et al (1987), Piazza et al(1991), Sancho et al (1991) and Bianchi(1992).

HMF

The HMF content is a criterion of the fresh-ness and heat processing of honey. Freshhoney may contain small amounts of HMF(White, 1979), which rarely exceed 10 mg/kg(Rodgers, 1979). The averages and maxi-mum values (Vmax) of our samples aresmaller than this figure, except for heatherand orange honey which had one samplewith 11.9 and 10.7 mg/kg HMF, respectively.Uncommonly high HMF was also found inItalian heather honey (Accorti et al, 1986;Persano Oddo et al, 1988). Fir and pinehoneys have the lowest HMF values,

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whereas sunflower, orange, thyme and cot-ton honeys have the highest.

Diastase activity

The diastase activity (expressed in dias-tase units, DU) of all 174 samples exam-ined averaged at 23.0 and ranged from aminimum of 8.6 DU (orange) to a maximumof 51 DU (chestnut). Thymus and chestnuthoneys had high values, heather and pine

moderate, whereas sunflower, cotton and fir honeys had a low diastase activity. Finallyorange honey had the lowest diastaticvalue.

In a previous study, an average diastaseactivity of 15.6 DU for thyme honey with theminimum value of 4.5 DU was recorded

(Thrasyvoulou, 1986), which was contra-dictory to the high diastase activity of 33.1 DU of Italian thyme honey (Persano Oddo etal, 1990). We investigated the possibility ofwhether beekeeping techniques might have

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affected the enzymes of this honey. Wefound that in certain dry, hot islands, bee-keepers feed bees with substantial amountsof syrup to maintain a high bee population.This decreased diastase activity was pre-viously demonstrated by Zalewski (1962),Kuznetsov and Ermolaeva (1964), Popescuet al (1965), and Zagaevskll and Kra-marenko (1982). The samples examined inthis research had been collected from bee-

keepers that fed no sugar syrup to their beesduring the spring. The average diastaseactivity of those samples (32.2) was closerto the corresponding values for Italian hon-eys.

Comparison of our results of diastaseactivity with those previously reported inthe literature, shows that the values for theGreek sunflower and orange honeys (15.9and 11.7) correspond to those reported byPersano Oddo et al (1990) for Italian hon-eys (16.3 and 9.8). However, they do notagree with the 21.8 DU value of orangefound in Spanish honeys (Serra Bonvehiand Gomez Pajuero, 1983). The value ofGreek heather honey (27.6) was higherthan the Italian value (7.8). The DU value infir (18.5) was similar to the Italian (22.9)(Persano Oddo et al, 1990) and lower thanthe French honeys (43.0) (Pourtallier andTaliercio, 1970).

The wide range of diastase activityobserved in thyme (33.1) and in chestnuthoneys (27.1) is not unusual in unifloral hon-eys. Rusakova (1984) found a range of 30.7for lime honey, Persano Oddo et al (1990)found 32.3 for chestnut and 23.2 DU for Ital-ian fir honey, and Serra Bonvehi and Grana-dos Tarres (1993) found 55 DU for heatherhoney. This natural variation and the differ-ences between the same types of honeysproduced in different countries was the rea-son for a severe criticism of the use of dia-stase as a criterion of quality evaluation ofhoney (Schade et al, 1958; Wilson, 1971;Rusakova 1984; Thrasyvoulou, 1986; Kim,1987; White 1992).

Proline

The proline content of the 80 samples takenfrom the 8 different unifloral honeys wasfound to have an average of 526 mg/kg,with a minimum value of 264 in orange anda maximum of 1 205 in thyme (table I).Thyme and sunflower honeys had highamounts of proline whereas orange and firhoneys had the lowest content.

Proline can be used to distinguish genuinefrom adulterated honey, since honey fromsugar-fed bees has significantly lower levelsof proline. No sample was found to containproline near to the 160-200 mg/kg indicatorlevel for honey adulteration (White and Rudyj,1978; Talpay 1985; Dustmann, 1993).

Microscopic characteristics

Predominant pollen was found in the thyme,sunflower, heather and chestnut samples(table I). Pine and fir honey had a low HDE/Pratio that did not agree with the high value(> 3) of honeydews from other countries(Louveaux et al, 1978). The presence oflarge fungal spores that characterized theGreek pine honey (Sawyer, 1988) was notso common in our samples.

The number of pollen types in Greek uni-floral honeys varied from 24 to 10 (table II).High numbers of pollen types (> 20) werefound in pine, and thyme honeys, mediumnumber (15-20) in fir, sunflower and heatherhoneys and low (10-15) in chestnut, cottonand orange honeys. As the pollen grainswith a frequency < 1 % were not identified,and not all the pollen grains could be iden-tified to species level, our results are notdirectly comparable with the results of otherauthors. The average number of pollentypes in Greek honeys does not essentiallydiffer from those reported by Varis et al(1982) and Seijo et al (1992), but are smallerthan those recorded by Serra Bonvehi andMundo Elias (1988) and Jato et al (1991).

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The great number of different pollen typesin pine honey may be explained by contam-ination with foreign pollen. Pollen that hadbeen collected and stored by bees in combsnear brood area during the spring is totallysealed with pine honey during the heavyhoneydew flow. These combs may beextracted 2 or more times by the beekeepersresulting in contamination of pine honey withforeign pollen. Floral honey produced in thecolonies before their removal to pine forestcould cause a secondary pollen contamina-tion.

From the pollen spectrum of Greek uni-floral honeys in table II, we can concludethe following:

Pine and fir honeys

Secondary and important minor pollen inpine honey were usually of chestnut andheather. The rest were different minor

pollen. Important minor pollen grains in firhoney were those of Brassicaceae, Labi-atae and Pyrus/Prunus. Erica spp appearedin 9 of the 16 samples of fir honey in minorfrequency.

Chestnut honey

The pollen grains of chestnut were over-represented as expected (Louveaux et al,1978). The average percentage of pollengrains of Castanea was 90.4 ± 4.5% andthe maximum 95%. Four samples withbetween 85 and 90% pollen grains of Cas-tanea were regarded as being producedfrom Castanea plant, since they had thechemical and organoleptic characteristicsof chestnut honey. Other important pollengrains were not found.

Thyme honey

Fourteen samples of thyme honey out of 20were found with Thymus as predominant

pollen (45-85.1%) and 6 as secondarypollen (35-45%). Samples with less than35% were rejected. The minimum percent-age of Thymus-type pollen in the rejectedsamples was 7.8%. The pollen grains ofCastanea, Cistus, Citrus, Compositae, Bra-sicaceae, Erica spp, Prunus/Pyrus, Robinia,Taraxacum, Trifolium spp and Vicia formappear in more than half of the thyme sam-ples, although in different frequencies.

Sunflower honey

Although the pollen grains of sunflower areunder-represented (Sawyer, 1988), wefound a range of 21.1 to 81.17% pollengrains of Helianthus. Twelve samples(57.2%) were found with predominant and9 (42.8%) with secondary pollen. Castaneawas the most frequently found pollen typeapart from Helianthus in sunflower hon-eys.

Cotton honey

Talpay (1985) cited honeydew of cotton ascontaining Gossypium only as minor pollen.We found a range between 3 and 45% for

pollen grains of Gossypium in samplesexamined as cotton honey. Samples thathad percentages of pollen grains of Gossyp-ium less than 20% were rejected. Cottonhoney is not listed by the InternationalCommission for Bee Botany as beingunder-represented in pollen of the plant ori-gin (Louveaux et al, 1978). Erica spp wasthe most frequent pollen grain in cottonhoney.

Heather honey

The pollen of Erica spp was predominantin all samples that were examined and occa-sionally reached 90%. Important minor andminor pollens were rare and were mainlythose of Castanea.

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Orange honey

Citrus pollen was found in the range of 7.3to 14.1 %. Brassicaceae, Erica spp and Tri-folium spp were the most frequent pollentypes that appeared in orange honey.

CONCLUSIONS

This research describes the variability ofthe physicochemical parameters of 8 Greekunifloral honeys. The high electrical con-ductivity, ash and pH of pine, fir and chest-nut honeys are the only variables amongthose examined with actual diagnosticpotential. The averages of the other param-eters differed between unifloral honeys butwere not representative and do not charac-terize a certain type of honey. Thyme andchestnut honeys are richer in diastase activ-ity, whereas orange honey is low in pH, ash,proline, diastase and electrical conductiv-ity. Sunflower honey, on the other hand, hasa high content of proline but low diastase.Heather honey may have water content thatexceeds the maximum permissible level of21 %. Futhermore, all the chestnut samplesdo not comply with CAC standards for ashcontent. Pollen analysis along with thephysicochemical and organoleptic param-eters can be very useful to characterize uni-floral honeys, especially those derived fromthyme, sunflower, heather and chestnutblossom.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to Greek beekeepers that col-laborated with us in providing samples of honeyand valuable information. We also wish to thankthe students of the Agricultural Faculty, Aris-totelian University of Thessaloniki, particularly SBefa, E Koutis, T Loulou, C Makris, M Dandali,and H Tomproukidou for their technical assis-tance. The valuable suggestions and advice of2 referees are acknowledged.

Résumé &mdash; Quelques caractéristiquesphysico-chimiques et microscopiquesde miels grecs unifloraux. Au total, 174échantillons de miels unifloraux ont été ana-

lysés : pin (n = 48), sapin (n = 16), châtai-gnier (n = 13), thym (n = 20), bruyère (n =20), oranger (n =17), tournesol (n = 20) etcoton (n = 20). On a déterminé la teneur eneau, en cendres, en HMF, en proline, l’acti-vité enzymatique, la conductibilité électrique,le pH et les caractéristiques microscopiques.Tous les échantillons étaient frais, non trai-tés et stockés au réfrigérateur au préalable.Les teneurs en eau, en cendres, en HMFont été mesurées selon les recommanda-tions de la CAC (1989), la teneur en pro-line selon Ough (1969), la conductibilitéélectrique selon Louveaux et al (1973), etl’analyse mélissopalynologique selon Lou-veaux et al (1978). Le tableau I présenteles principaux résultats des analyses phy-sico-chimiques, le pourcentage du pollenprincipal des miels unifloraux et le rapportHDE/P dans les miellats. Le tableau II pré-sente les résultats des analyses polliniques.Les classes de fréquence des grains de pol-len se répartissent en : prédominant (P),secondaire (S), mineur important (IM) etmineur (M). La majorité des miels avait unefaible teneur en eau (en moyenne 16,7%).Les valeurs maximales étaient inférieuresà ce qui est autorisé par la CAC (21 %). Lemiel de bruyère présentait la valeur

moyenne la plus élevée (18,6%) (2 échan-tillons avaient une humidité supérieure à21 %), tandis que le miel de sapin avait laplus basse (15,2%). Les miels de pin, desapin et de châtaignier avaient les valeursles plus élevées pour le pH, la teneur encendres et la conductibilité électrique, tandisque le miel d’oranger avait les plus basses.Tous les échantillons de miels de châtai-

gnier et 2 de sapin dépassaient la tolérancemaximale en cendres fixée par la CAC. Unecorrélation significative a été observée entrela teneur en cendres et la conductibilité élec-

trique (r> 0,97). Pour le miel de châtaignier,la relation n’était pas linéaire (r = 0,41).

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L’activité enzymatique était élevée pour lesmiels de thym et de châtaignier (respecti-vement 32,5 et 32,2), modérée pour lesmiels de pin et de bruyère (28,4 et 28,6),basse pour les miels de sapin, de coton etde tournesol (18,5, 17,6, 15,9) et très bassepour le miel d’oranger (11,7). Les miels dethym et de tournesol avaient une teneur enproline plus élevée que les autres miels uni-floraux. La valeur minimale de 264 mg de

proline par kg de miel qui a été trouvée dansun échantillon de miel d’oranger était supé-rieure au taux minimum caractéristiqued’une altération du miel. Les miels de thymet de pin comportaient plus de 20 types dif-férents de pollen, les miels de sapin, tour-nesol et bruyère entre 15 et 20, les mielsde châtaignier, de coton et d’oranger entre10 et 15. Le pollen prédominant a été trouvédans les miels de châtaignier, de thym, detournesol et de bruyère. Le pollen debruyère a été le pollen le plus fréquent dansles miels grecs unifloraux.

miel unifloral / caractéristiques physico-chimiques et microscopiques / Grèce

Zusammenfassung &mdash; Einige physika-lisch-chemische und mikroskopischeEigenschaften von griechischen Sor-tenhonigen. Wassergehalt, Asche, HMF,Diastaseaktivität, elektrische Leitfähigkeit,pH, Prolin und mikroskopische Eigenschaf-ten von 174 Proben verschiedener Sorten-

honige wurde analytisch bestimmt. 48Honigproben stammten von Pinien, 16 vonTannen, 13 von Edelkastanien, 20 von Thy-mian, 20 von Heide, 17 von Orangen, 20von Sonnenblumen und 20 von Baumwolle.Die frischen, nicht bearbeiteten Probenwurden im Kühlschrank bis zur Analyse auf-bewahrt. Wassergehalt, Asche, HMF undDiastaseaktivität wurden entsprechend derEmpfehlungen von CAC (1989) bestimmt.Die Messung der elektrischen Leitfähigkeitwurde mit Methoden von Louveaux et al

(1973), die von Prolin mit denen von Ough

(1969) und die Pollenanalyse nach Lou-veaux et al (1978) durchgeführt. Tabelle Igibt die mittleren Werte und statistischeAngaben der physikalisch-chemischen Ana-lysen, sowie den Prozentsatz des Haupt-pollenanteils im Sortenhonig und das HDE/PVerhältnis im Honigtauhonig wieder. TabelleII zeigt die Pollenanalyse von griechischenSortenhonigen. Die Frequenzklassen derPollenkörner wurden als vorherrschend (P),zweitrangig (S), als wichtige Nebenpollen(IM) und unbedeutende Pollen (M) ange-geben. Die meisten griechischen Honigehatten einen geringen Wassergehalt (imDurchschnitt 16,7%). Fast alle Werte warengeringer als das Maximum des nach CACerlaubten Wassergehaltes (21 %); 2 Probendes Heidehonigs hatte über 21 %. Tannen-honig hatte mit 15,2% den niedrigsten undHeidehonig mit 18,6% den höchsten Was-sergehalt. Die Werte des pH, der Asche undder elektrischen Leitfähigkeit waren beiPinien-, Tannen- und Edelkastanienhonigam höchsten, während sie beim Orangen-honig am niedrigsten waren. Alle Probender Edelkastanie und 2 der Tanne (12,5%)überschritten bei den Aschewerten die Tole-

ranzgrenze nach CAC (1989). Es wurde einsignifikanter Zusammenhang (r> 0,97) zwi-schen Asche und elektrischer Leitfähigkeitgefunden. Nur im Edelkastanienhonig gabes keinen linearen Zusammenhang (r =0,41). Die Diastaseaktivität war in Honigenvon Thymian (32,5) und Edelkastanien(32,2) hoch, von Pinien und Heide (28,4bzw 27,6) mä&szlig;ig. Bei Tanne, Baumwolleund Sonnenblumen war sie niedrig (18,5,17,6 und 15,9) und sehr niedrig im Oran-genhonig (11,7). Thymian- und Sonnenblu-menhonige hatten einen signifikant höhe-ren Prolingehalt als die anderen

Sortenhonige. Der niedrigste Wert, der mit264 mg Prolin/kg Honig in einer Probe vonOrangenhonig gemessen wurde, lag nochweit über der Grenze (160-200 mg), die alsIndikator für eine Verfälschung gilt. Pinien-und Thymianhonige enthielten mehr als 20unterschiedliche Pollenarten, Tanne, Son-

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nenblumen und Heidehonige 15-20, Edel-kastanien-, Baumwoll- und Orangenhonig10-15. Vorherrschende Pollenarten wurden

in Honigen von Edelkastanien, Thymian,Sonnenblumen und Heide gefunden. Hei-depollen war der in griechischen Sortenho-nigen am häufigsten gefundene Pollen.

Honig / Sortenhonig / physikalisch-che-mische und mikroskopische Eigen-schaften / Griechenland

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