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. 2023 Oct 3;12(19):3656.
doi: 10.3390/foods12193656.

Assessment of the Quality, Chemometric and Pollen Diversity of Apis mellifera Honey from Different Seasonal Harvests

Andrés Rivera-Mondragón  1   2   3 , Maravi Marrone  4 , Gaspar Bruner-Montero  3   5 , Katerin Gaitán  2 , Leticia de Núñez  2 , Rolando Otero-Palacio  6 , Yostin Añino  5   7 , William T Wcislo  8 , Sergio Martínez-Luis  3   4 , Hermógenes Fernández-Marín  3   4   8
Affiliations

Assessment of the Quality, Chemometric and Pollen Diversity of Apis mellifera Honey from Different Seasonal Harvests

Andrés Rivera-Mondragón et al. Foods. .

Abstract

The parameters for assessing the quality of honey produced by Apis mellifera are standardized worldwide. The physicochemical properties of honey might vary extensively due to factors such as the geographical area where it was produced and the season in which it was harvested. Little information is available on variations in honey quality among different harvest periods in tropical areas, and particularly in neotropical dry forests. This study describes variations in seventeen physicochemical parameters and the pollen diversity of honey harvested from beehives during the dry season in February, March, and April 2021, in the dry arc of Panama. Potassium is the most abundant mineral in honey samples, and its concentration increases during the harvest period from February to April. A PCA analysis showed significant differences among the samples collected during different harvest periods. The pollen diversity also differs among honey samples from February compared with March and April. The results indicate that climatic conditions may play an important role in the quality of honey produced in the dry arc of Panama. Furthermore, these results might be useful for establishing quality-control parameters of bee honey produced in Panama in support of beekeeping activities in seasonal wet-dry areas of the tropics.

Keywords: Apis mellifera; Panama; chemometrics; physicochemical analysis; seasonal variation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Honey bee physicochemical correlation matrix. Physicochemical data were analyzed by estimating the Spearman correlation coefficient for each pairwise comparison, which is displayed in each cell. Positive correlations (from 0 to 1) are displayed in blue, and negative correlations are in red (from 0 to −1). The color intensity (dark to light) and size of the circles in the cells (small to large) indicate the strength and direction of the relationships among the physicochemical parameters. The matrix only illustrates statistically significant values (p < 0.05), while nonsignificant correlations are left as blank cells.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relationship between the physicochemical parameters and harvest period of the honey samples: (A) factor map showing the physicochemical parameters represented by their quality in which a high cos2 score (lighter blue) indicates a good representation of the variable; (B) cluster analysis generated with HCPC showing the relationships among the physicochemical parameters during the dry season. The percentage next to the axis labels indicates the variance explained by each component, and the largest shape denotes the centroid for each group.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Pollen species diversity across the harvest periods of the honey samples. The clustering analysis, performed using the Ward method, reveals the grouping patterns and similarities among the pollen species. The cluster represents 217 morphospecies of pollen detected across honey samples.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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