Geographical and botanical origin of honeys can be characterized on the basis of physico-chemical composition, sensory properties and on the basis of melissopalynological analysis. No comprehensive description of the characteristics of Czech honey has been published so far. This study provides insights that are important for correct classification. The study analysed 317 samples of authentic honey from randomly selected localities. Due to the diversity of the landscape, the typical honey of the region is blend honey with a predominance of blossom honey. According to the pollen profile and electric conductivity, the honeys were sorted into the following: Brassica honey (BH), Floral honey (FH), Fruit tree honey (PH), Honeydew (HD), Lime tree honey (LH), Robinia pseudoacacia honey (RH), and Trifolium honey (TH). Physico-chemical properties, including higher carbohydrates, were determined for the honeys and their pollen profiles were examined. The physico-chemical properties and pollen profile are partially in compliance with the description of European monofloral honeys, except for RH and TH. Although they had the highest proportion of acacia pollen, amounting to >10% of all the Czech honeys, these RH honeys differ from the European standard, so they cannot be considered acacia honey. Further, PH honeys and FH polyfloral honeys were described. Most honeys contained a significant proportion of rapeseed pollen, which is one of the common agricultural crops grown in the Czech Republic. All the analysed honeys met the parameters defined by the legislation. Due to direct on-site sampling, honeys were characterized by a low 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural (HMF) content (3.0 mg/kg) and high diastase activity (24.4 DN). Honeydew honeys had the highest proportion of higher carbohydrates, primarily of Melezitose (4.8 g/100 g) and Trehalose (1.3 g/100 g). The presence of higher carbohydrates was also confirmed in LH for Maltose (4.6 g/100 g) and Turanose (2.4 g/100 g).

In this study 12 acacia and 12 linden honey samples from the Czech Republic were analyzed with a chemometric and volatile compound profiles approach. The results of electrical conductivity (17.4 and 65.1 mS/m), free acidity (12.5 and 24.5 meq/kg), diastase activity (12.6 and 18.8 DN), colour (21.5 and 47.8 mm Pfund), hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (11.5 and 3.5 mg/kg), fructose (45.1 and 36.3 g/100g), fructose + glucose (F + G) (76.7 and 69.3 g/100g) content and fructose/glucose ratio (1.4 and 1.1) showed statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) between acacia and linden honey, respectively. The physico-chemical properties and pollen profiles were in compliance with the description of European monofloral honey, except for acacia honey due to the low proportion of acacia pollen (2.8 − 10.3%). According to volatile compounds analysis by head-space solid phase micro-extraction coupled with gas chromatography − mass spectrometry (HS-SPME/GC-MS), nine key volatile substances were selected from more than 100 volatile compounds present in the analysed samples for evaluation as markers of botanical origin typical of the most common plant nectar sources in the Czech Republic. Further, the non-targeted analysis combined with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed trends and outliers within all chromatography data obtained for 24 honey samples. Cis-linalool oxide and β-linalool have been confirmed as markers of acacia honey, while carvacrol and p-cymenene were found almost exclusively in linden honey. The results demonstrated that the chemometrics with the non-targeted and targeted volatile compounds analysis approach is reliable and accurate for the classification of honey of various botanical origins.

Characteristic parameters of honey wines and dessert meads | Vojtěch Kružík, Adéla Grégrová, Lívia Vaispacherová, Eliška Václavíková, Tereza Škorpilová, Ales Rajchl, Helena Cizkova | Agricultural Journals

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