Honey has always been a valued food and because of its expensive production, it has always been subjected to adulteration whether intentional or unintentional due to beekeeping technology. The objective of this study was to determine if some beekeeping technologies in AŽ bee hives can cause unintentional honey adulteration. The research was carried out on 30 bee colonies settled in the AŽ hives, which in the spring received different amounts of food maintaining with a routine technique of reversing the combs from brood chamber to honey supers. In year 2012 we collected 11 samples, in year 2013 28, in year 2014 29 and in year 2015 27 samples, in total 95 samples of honey. The physicochemical properties evaluated were: water, free acidity content of proline, HMF, electrical conductivity, pH value, diastase number. We determined the color of the samples, sensory and microscopic properties: qualitative and quantitative melissopalynological analysis, number of yeast, and also analysis of stable carbon isotopes and foreign enzymes (β-fructofuranosidase, β/γ-amylase). With the statistical methods the differences and correlations between parameters in samples of each year were revealed. The number of adulterated samples differs among the years because of the use of different types of bee-feed, honey-flow season and conditions in bee colonies. Beekeepers can, in spite of certain guidelines, produce authentic honey, despite the reversing the combs from brood chamber to honey supers. On the basis of present study, the most successful analysis to reveal indirect honey adulteration are stable isotope ratios of carbon methods (EA/LC-IRMS), in case of feeding the colonies with bee-feed with addition of coloring and yeast, as well as the color parameters a* and b* and the number of yeasts.
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