Sugar profile and enzymatic analysis of stingless bee honey collected from local market in Malaysia

Abstract

Commercial honey is widely available in the market, raising questions whether the honeys are good in quality or otherwise, Thus, this research was designed to compare the quality of harvested stingless bee honey and commercial honey available in the Malaysian market by measuring their sugar profile and enzyme activity. The analysis showed that the honey contained moisture between 16.6% - 32.1%, various sugar starting with fructose (15.03 - 48.44 g/100 g), glucose (12.16 - 40.09 g/100 g), sucrose (<0.01 - 7.29 g/100 g), Fructose + Glucose (F+G) (15.03- 80.25 g/100 g), Fructose/Glucose (F/G) (0.78 - 1.63), and G/W (0.47 - 1.89). Also, diastase activity and Invertase activity of the honey varied from 1.82 to 6.11 DN and 0.27 IN to 4.94 IN, respectively. Eight honey samples including harvested honey, H. Itama and G.Thoracica showing comparable results with past studies and within the limits of Malaysian Standard. However, all honey samples demonstrate lower enzyme activity suggesting that honey from stingless bee has low enzyme activity compare to Apis mellifera honey.