Introduction to Honey and Beehive Subproducts

• Introduction to the study of honey and wax

What is Honey?

• Natural sweet substance produced by honeybees (Apis mellifera).
• Derived from the nectar of blossoms or secretions of living parts of plants.
• Can also come from excretions of plant-sucking insects on plants.
• Honeybees collect, transform, combine with their own substances, store, and leave in honeycombs to ripen.
• Must not have any ingredients added or constituents removed to be legally marketed as honey in the European Union.

Honey Origin and Types

• Blossom or Nectar Honey: comes directly from flower nectar, usually lighter in color with a floral aroma.
• Honeydew Honey: comes mainly from excretions of plant-sucking insects (Hemiptera).
• Bees can produce honeydew honey in dry floral nectar seasons.
• Honeybees gather honeydew from leaf surfaces, bring it to the hive, add enzymes, reduce water content, and store like nectar.

Other Beehive Subproducts

• Hive: structure where bees live.
• Apiary: bee yard where beehives are kept.
• Beekeeping: practice of maintaining bee colonies.
• Beekeeper: person who keeps bees.
• Comb: a structure of hexagonal cells made of wax.
• Brood/Broodless Comb: refers to comb with or without developing bees (larvae).
• Honeycomb: comb containing honey.
• Cell: individual hexagonal compartment in the comb.
• Frame: structure that holds the comb within the hive.
• Other beehive subproducts include Honey as an energy reserve, Beeswax as a building material for combs, Propolis for protection, Royal Jelly as a queen development food, and Bee Pollen as a protein source for larvae and young workers.

Processing methods used in beehive subproducts

• Vary depending on the specific product.
• Common steps are extraction, isolation, purification, quality control, drying, shredding, and separation.

Beeswax Composition and Uses

• Composed of long-chain fatty acids, esters, alcohols, and hydrocarbons, including linear wax monoesters and complex wax esters with 15-hydroxypalmitic acid and diols.
• Chemical composition varies based on geographical zones and bee species.
• Solid at room temperature, melts between 62°C and 65°C.
• Used in the food industry as a glazing agent.
• Used in cosmetics as a thickener, drug carrier, binder, and release retardant in pharmaceuticals.
• Utilized for moisturizing and antioxidant properties in cosmetics.
• Also used for candle-making.

Honey types (Bellik & Iguerouada, 2013)

• Blossom honey / nectar honey is from nectar of plants.
• Multifloral (plurifloral) honey is from nectar of several plants with no dominant species, with variable properties.
• Unifloral (monofloral) honey is from one plant species (45%+ pollen from that species), maintains consistent characteristics.
• Honeydew honey is from excretions of plant-sucking insects.
• Squeezed honey: pressed from broodless combs (<=45°C).
• Filtered honey: has foreign matter removed.
• Drained honey: drained from decapped broodless combs.
• Extracted honey: removed by centrifuging decapped honeycombs.
• Chunk honey: a piece of sealed honeycomb.
• Comb honey: honey sold in sealed combs.
• Comb honey in fluid honey: cut comb is in fluid honey.
• Liquid honey: free from visible crystals.
• Crystallized / granulated honey: solidified.
• Partially crystallized honey: a mixture of liquid and crystallized.
• Honey can be white/opaque, colored like dark brown (amber), or golden in color.

Honey composition and quality

• Involves carbohydrates (82.3% on average), water (17.2%), nitrogenous substances (0.3%), minerals (0.03-1%), vitamins, organic acids, flavour aromatic substances, and polyphenols.
• The Council Directive 2001/110/EC of 20 December 2001 relates to honey, which provides a guideline for chemical composition of commercial honey.
• Glucose and fructose are the main sugar components and the EU directive also sets limits for sucrose, depending on the type of honey

Honey Physico-Chemical Characteristics

• Water activity: between 0.50 and 0.65 (considered low).
• Acidity: pH ranging from 3 to 5 due to organic acids like gluconic acid.
• High sugar concentration creates osmotic pressure.
• Contains antimicrobial components (hydrogen peroxide, antioxidants, and antimicrobial peptides).
• These properties inhibit bacterial and fungal growth, but honey is not aseptic.

Honey Microbiology

• Microbiota originates from pollen, flowers, soil, air, dust, the honeybee digestive tract, or human processing.
• Microbes of interest withstand concentrated sugar, acidity, and anti-microbial character.
• Microorganisms are classified into those commonly found in honey (yeasts, spore-forming bacteria), those indicating sanitary quality (coliforms, yeasts), and those that could cause illness.
• Examples of yeasts can be (Zygosaccharomyces rouxii).
• Examples of Spore-forming bacteria can be (Bacillus spp., Clostridium spp.).

Honey Processing Technology

• Involves several steps.
• Initial Extraction: involves selecting combs and separating honey from wax using centrifugal force.
• Dehumidification: lowers water content of certain honeys using warm, dry equipment, requiring relative humidity under 18.5%.
• Liquefaction and Mixture: for honey that crystallizes during storage, uses gentle heat, often in a water bath (30-40°C).
• Heating and Pasteurization: involves raising temperature rapidly, maintaining at 72 °C for 120 seconds, then rapid cooling, and can use a traditional hot bath.
• This process affects honey features like progressive browning (color), loss of volatile substances (aroma), changes in crystal structure, etc.

Honey Quality

• It must not have food ingredients added, any objectionable matter, flavor, aroma, or taint.
• It must not have naturally begun fermentation or effervescence.
• It must not have been heated or processed to such an extent that its essential composition is changed - above 78 degrees C, It must not been submitted to chemical or biochemical treatments to influence honey crystallization.

Honey contaminants

• Must be free from heavy metals in amounts hazardous to human health.
• Comply with maximum limits for residues of pesticides and veterinary drugs.
• Authorities check for Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Arsenic (As), and Mercury (Hg).
• Council Directive 2001/110/EC defines honey standards, does not establish limits for heavy metals but they vary by monitoring programs.

Honey Adulteration

• Occurs when honey is mixed with other substances.
• Honey fraud involves adding industrial sugar syrups or falsely labeling honey.
• Has significant economic, nutritional, and organoleptic (flavor) impacts.
• Methods to measure include water content, enzyme activities, HMF, electrical conductivity, sugar profiles, proline, and melissopalynological pattern.
• Lower water content and higher glucose can be an indicator of adulteration.
• Commercial evaluation of honey/official control looks for physical-chemical and sensorial features.
• Indicators of quality, negatively impacted by heat, include 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and enzymatic activity of diastase.
• Low HMF levels means a fresh, properly processed honey.
• High HMF levels may indicate an old, overheated, or adulterated product.

5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF)

• Organic compound (C6H6O3) that forms naturally during sugar degradation and measured to determine the quality of honey.
• The presence of HMF may indicate a human health issue because of its suspected mutagenicity.
• Some studies raise concern over it as a potential security issue if present at elevated levels.
• Low HMF levels indicates it is fresh and properly processed.
• High HMF levels indicate that it is old, overheated, or adulterated
• Council Directive 2001/110/EC has maximum allowed HMF in most honeys at 40 mg/kg and 80 mg/kg in tropical regions.

Diastase (Diastase Activity)

• Refers to a group of enzymes (mainly a and B-amylases) naturally present in honey.
• Heat and storage can impact this activity.
• Measuring diastase activity is a way to evaluate the freshness and processing conditions
• The directive has minimum required diastase activity (general value) as 8 DN on the Schade scale (units, DN - Diastase Number).
• Low Diastase, indicate that it may have been aged, overheated, or poorly stored.
• High Diastase levels indicates that it is fresh and has not been overheated.