Honey is a natural sweetener with a complex composition. Honey features vary depending on the botanical source and geographical origin, as well as climatic, processing and storage conditions. Honey is mainly composed of carbohydrates and water, parameters that influence its shelf life and some of its properties, including color, flavor, density, viscosity, hygroscopicity, and crystallization. Honey also contains small amounts of other components, such as nitrogen compounds, organic acids, minerals, vitamins, Maillard reaction products, volatile compounds, and several bioactive substances that affect sensory and physical characteristics, as well as biological potential. This review summarizes the literature about the composition and main properties of honey. It also describes the use of honey as a biomonitor for collecting information about the environment, identifying environmental contamination and assessing the level of soil, water, plant and air pollution.

Propolis is a resinous vegetal exudate modified by bees, and is interesting as a preservative and potentially functional product. This work dealt with studying the common phenolic profiles and antioxidant capacities of 13 bee propolis from different geographical areas. Both hyaluronidase and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activities were also assessed and related when possible with particular phenolic compounds. High performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV) analysis showed that every propolis contained p-coumaric acid (1.2–12.2 mg/g) and ferulic acid (0.3–11.0 mg/g). Pinocembrin, catechin, and caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) plus galangin were the main flavonoids. Antioxidant activities were higher than 280 µmol trolox/g for trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), 0.099 mmol uric acid/g for radical-scavenging effect on hydroxyl radicals, and 0.19 mg/mL for half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of antioxidant activity against superoxide anion radical. Working with solutions of 10 mg/mL propolis, hyaluronidase inhibitory activity ranged between 0% and 68.20%, being correlated to ferulic acid content. ACE inhibitory effect determined by HPLC was higher than 78%, being correlated with catechin and p-coumaric acid. Therefore, propolis could be useful for food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic companies, also helping to reduce risk factors for diseases related to oxidative damage, inflammatory processes, and hypertension. This research also highlights the necessity for harmonized analysis methods and the expression of results for propolis.

Although organic acids represent <0.5% of honey's constituents, they make important contributions to the organoleptic, physical, and chemical properties of honey. To date, approximately 30 nonaroma...

Stingless bees (Tribe Meliponini) are a diverse group of highly eusocial bees distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics. Trigona carbonaria honey, from Australia, was characterized by traditional physicochemical parameters (acidity, sugars, diastase, electrical conductivity, hydroxymethylfurfural, invertase, nitrogen, and water content) and other compositional factors (flavonoids, polyphenols, organic acids, and water activity), as well as total antioxidant capacity and radical scavenging activity. For the Australian T. carbonaria, the traditional analytical parameters were similar to those previously reported for neotropical stingless bee honey and confirm that honeys produced by Meliponini bees possess several physicochemical properties that are distinctly different from Apis mellifera honey, with higher values of moisture (26.5 ± 0.8 g of water/100 g of honey), water activity (0.74 ± 0.01), electrical conductivity (1.64 ± 0.12 mS/cm), and free acidity (124.2 ± 22.9 mEq/kg of honey) and a very low diastase activity (0.4 ± 0.5 diastase number) and invertase activity (5.7 ± 1.5 invertase number). The sugar spectrum was quite different from that of A. mellifera honey, with 20.3 ± 2.9 g of maltose/100 g of honey. The values of pH (4.0 ± 0.1), lactonic acidity (4.7 ± 0.8 mEq/kg of honey), sucrose (1.8 ± 0.4 g/100 g of honey), and fructose/glucose ratio (1.42 ± 0.13) fell in the same ranges as those of A. mellifera honey. Citric (0.23 ± 0.09) and malic (0.12 ± 0.03) acid concentrations (in g/kg of honey) of T. carbonaria honeys were in the range described for A. mellifera honey. D-Gluconic was more concentrated (9.9 ± 1.3 g/kg of honey), in the range of Italian Castanea, Thymus, Arbutus, and honeydew honeys. Flavonoid content was 10.02 ± 1.59 mg of quercetin equivalents/100 g of honey, and polyphenol contents were 55.74 ± 6.11 mg of gallic acid equivalents/100 g of honey. The antioxidant activity, expressed as percentage of 2,2′-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) cation (ABTS^.+) decolorization, was 233.96 ± 50.95 μM Trolox equivalents, and free radical 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH^.) depletion was 48.03 ± 12.58 equivalents of ascorbic acid. All reported values are averages ± standard deviation. The antioxidant activity can represent an important added value for T. carbonaria honey, to initiate a medicinal approach for both nutritional and pharmaceutical applications, besides further physicochemical characterization.