The use of ETOH for the dilution of honey

Abstract

2004. The use of ETOH for the dilution of honey. -Grana 43: 174-182. ISSN 0017-3134.Since the beginning of honey production, certain honey types are preferred because they taste better, are better for cooking, or do not rapidly crystallize. Pollen found in honey is used to determine the honey's type. Techniques used to extract pollen from honey vary in the amount of honey examined, the amount of water used to dilute the honey, and the time and speed of centrifugation. These variations address the disparity in pollen recovery that is due to the specific gravity and sinking rates of the different pollen types. Ethyl alcohol (ETOH) was used as a dilution liquid for honey and compared to two water-dilution techniques, one with a short centrifugation time (1 minute) and the other using a long centrifugation time (10 minutes). The ETOH samples were centrifuged for 3 minutes. All samples were centrifuged at 4000 r.p.m. Significantly higher pollen concentration values were found in the ETOH-diluted samples. Pollen concentration values of the ETOH-diluted samples were 5.26 times greater than water-diluted, short centrifugation samples, and 3.26 times greater than water-diluted, long centrifugation samples. ETOH-diluted samples produced 16% more taxa than the water-diluted short centrifugation technique, and 10% more taxa than the water-diluted long centrifugation technique. The pollen spectra were not consistent across the three techniques. Additional research is needed to determine the efficiency of other ETOH concentrations in recovering pollen from honey. We recommend that the ETOH-dilution technique become the standard technique for the extraction of pollen from honey for pollen analyses because of the improved pollen recovery.

A comparison of pollen counts: Light versus scanning electron microscopy

“…Like the results in this study, Jones and Bryant (2004) found that some taxa only occur in one count of a sample while others occur in all the counts.…”

Palynological and chemical volatile components of typically autumnal honeys of the western Mediterranean

“…Qualitative analysis of melissopalynological characters were carried out by a standardised method of Louveaux et al (1978). While it has been demonstrated that water dilution results in lower yields that can be biased against certain taxa (Jones & Bryant, 2004) due to the crystallised nature of some samples, we used warm water dilution to aid dissolution of the crystallised honey. The sample of 10 g of honey was dissolved in 20 ml of distilled water at 30…”

Pollen analysis ofAgathirsiawasps

“…Similarly, Jones and Bryant (1998) found that only 60% of the taxa were encountered after a 2500 grain count of a honey sample. The number of newly discovered taxa increased as the size of the total pollen count increases (Jones & Bryant, 2004). Pollen grains are numerous in most honey and soil samples but not in many insect samples.…”