Study of the characterization of some chemical and physical properties of types of Syrian bee honey and their conformity to the Syrian Standard

Ruba aldarf (1)*, Mohamad Nadaf (1),  and Ali Sultaneh(1)

(1). food sciences department, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University Lattakia, Syria.

 (*Corresponding author: Ruba aldarf, E.mail rubaaldarf86@gmail.com)               

Received: 7/12/ 2021        Accepted: 17/02/ 2022

Abstract: 

The study included five types of bee honey, which are Citrus honey, Ajram honey, Anise honey, Thistle honey, and Nigella sativa honey. The experiments were conducted at Tishreen University – Faculty of Agricultural Engineering – Laboratories of the Department of Food Sciences, Laboratories of the Directorate of internal trade and consumer protection in Lattakia. Honey samples were collected by distributing beehives in the production areas of each of the mentioned types during  2020.   The content of Fructose, Glucose, and Sacarose from the mentioned types of honey was estimated. The results of the study showed that the content of Fructose sugar was the highest in Anise honey, with an average of 49.24% compared to the other types of honey studied, with a very high moral significance. Whereas, the average value of glucose sugar was 33.7% in Anise honey, and it was the highest among other types of honey with a high moral significance. As for the sugar of sucrose, it had the lowest percentage of it in the honey of Nigella, Thistle and Anise, in comparison with Ajram and Citrus honey with a very high moral significance. As for the diastase number, the content of Ajram was the highest (18), compared to the Thistles and Nigella honey, which reached (17), Anise honey (14), and Citrus honey (8). And all of them were in conformity with the Syrian Standard Specification No.412 for the year 2004, which specified the diastase number of no less than 8 units for all types of honey except Citrus, not less than 3 units. The color grade of the studied types of honey was also determined; the Citrus honey was white, Ajram honey has a yellow color, Anise honey was light yellow, and Thistle honey and Nigella were dark yellow in color. The research was conducted to clarify the different types of honey among themselves in terms of content of sugars, diastase number and color degree.

Keywords: Color Degree, Diastase Number, Fructose, Glucose, Honey, Sacarose.

Full paper in Arabic: pdf