Floral Markers in Honey of Various Botanical and Geographic Origins: A Review

Abstract

In view of the expanding global market, authentication and characterization of botanical and geographic origins of honey has become a more important task than ever. Many studies have been performed with the aim of evaluating the possibilities to characterize honey samples of various origins by using specific chemical marker compounds. These have been identified and quantified for numerous honey samples. This article is aimed at summarizing the studies carried out during the last 2 decades. An attempt is made to find useful chemical markers for unifloral honey, based on the analysis of the compositional data of honey volatile compounds, phenolic acids, flavonoids, carbohydrates, amino acids, and some other constituents. This review demonstrates that currently it is rather difficult to find reliable chemical markers for the discrimination of honey collected from different floral sources because the chemical composition of honey also depends on several other factors, such as geographic origin, collection season, mode of storage, bee species, and even interactions between chemical compounds and enzymes in the honey. Therefore, some publications from the reviewed period have reported different floral markers for honey of the same floral origin. In addition, the results of chemical analyses of honey constituents may also depend on sample preparation and analysis techniques. Consequently, a more reliable characterization of honey requires the determination of more than a single class of compounds, preferably in combination with modern data management of the results, for example, principal component analysis or cluster analysis.

Characterization of Summer Savory (Satureja hortensis L.) Honey by Physico-Chemical Parameters and Chromatographic / Spectroscopic Techniques (GC-FID/MS, HPLC-DAD, UV/VIS and FTIR-ATR)

“…specific or non-specific chemical markers can be found. 1 Various methods of the honey minor constituents analysis (with or without the sample extraction) have been applied: thin-layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography with flame ionization / mass spectrometry (GC-FID / MS), high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array/mass spectrometry (HPLC-DAD / MS), capillary electrophoresis -timeof-flight mass spectrometry (CE-TOF-MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAED-PAD), Fourier transform-Raman (FT-Raman),…”

“…1 It is well known that accumulation of phytochemicals depends on climatic conditions, soil characteristics, and others; therefore, different pollen / nectar compositions impact the honey chemical composition. A honey consists mainly of saturated carbohydrate solution, although different valuable nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes, flavouring compounds, free amino acids and volatile organic compounds are present as minor components.…”

The identification of relationships between selected honey parameters by extracting the contribution of independent variables in a neural network model

“…Honey contains more than 180 constituents, mainly sugars: fructose and glucose as well as other sugars, minerals, vitamins, proteins, free amino acids, enzymes and a wide range of minor ingredients [1,2]. The amount of each ingredient depends on various factors, e.g., bee species, floral sources, geographical origin, season and climatic conditions [3]. In many scientific reports, it has been proved that the composition of honey can be used for its characterization [4,5] as well as there is a high degree of correlation between chemical and electrical honey features [6].…”

Optimization of the Extraction of the Volatile Fraction from Honey Samples by SPME-GC-MS, Experimental Design, and Multivariate Target Functions

“…In the last years, increasing attention has been devoted to the characterization of the profile of volatile molecules in honey samples above all in authenticity and adulteration studies [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], since the commercial value of honey is usually strictly correlated to its botanical and/or geographical origin. Unifloral honeys are certainly more valuable than multifloral; products show a different commercial value based on their botanical origin, particularly when the origin is strictly defined, for example, for PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) products.…”