Abstract:
Assessment of the quality and authenticity of commercial bee honey is crucial to
ensure consumer safety and rights. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of some
selected commercially available Sri Lankan bee honey. Bee honey samples
representing different commercially available brands (n=27) and raw bee honey
samples (n=5) as control samples were collected from some major bee honey producing areas in Sri Lanka. The quality of those samples was evaluated through
physicochemical parameters: The pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total soluble
solids (TSS), density, refractive index (RI), water content (WC), color (intensity,
Pfund scale, L* a* b* values), viscosity, free acidity (FA), ash, pollen density, and
sugar profile. Results depicted that the values of the samples were in the ranges of
2.55-4.57 for pH; 59.75-772 ϻS cm-1for EC, 71.35-80.10% for TSS, 1329.76-
1428.23kg m-3 for density, 1.4704-1.4933 for RI, 17.25-26.40% for WC, 0.040-0.943
for color intensity, -23.75-311.52 mm for color pfund, 500-5100 cP for viscosity,
10.94-103.46 meq kg-1 for FA, 0.0392-1.034% for ash, 5195.5–74,262,862.50 per g
for pollen density, 0-8.931% and 24.978-84.188% for sucrose and fructose content
respectively. Although many samples confirmed to the standard norms (TSS- max 75-
80%, RI- Max 1.4740-1.4840, WC- max. 20-22%, FA- max. 50 meq kg-1, ash-max.
0.5-0.6%, sucrose- max. 5%, fructose and glucose-min. 60-68%) provided by the
local and international standards (SLS, CODEX, EU). It was noted that several raw
bee honey samples and many commercially available samples are not confirmed to
the norms. It can be concluded that non-conformances of some commercial and raw
bee honey samples to the local and international quality standard norms are an
indication of inferior quality and high potential of adulteration of commercially
available bee honey.
