Honey Control Analyses

The analyses of various honeys must have three aims: quality control, purity control, and identification of adulterations. Indeed, honey – an outstandingly valuable foodstuff – can be deprived of some of its qualities following inadequate handling. Extraction, processing and storage of honey performed without control often lead to obtaining a low-quality product. On the other hand, modern agriculture uses a wide range of phytosanitary products, and bee therapeutics often uses medicines requiring careful application. Consequently, honeys can be polluted, becoming unwholesome. Moreover, honey is a product liable to many adulterations. The latter can be subtle that even outstanding experts establish them with difficulty. However, the progress recorded in recent years in analytical chemistry enables their certain identification; thus mistakes detrimental to honest producers are avoided, mistakes which can be caused by the use of inadequate, outdated methods. Findings out of adulterations means not only identification of various products added to honey such as inverted sugar, saccharose, industrial glucose, molasses, starch, gelatine, germs, mucilages, etc,... but also the precision of floral denomination. In order to be sure that honey reaches the consumer in natural form and also with its valuable qualities, a permanent and many-sided control is necessary. This control is difficult and toilsome and can be successfully performed only at well-equipped laboratories and only by experts in this domain. In addition, in order to lend an international character to this control, honey standards have been drafted, to come soon in force, either at a national level for the Health Service, and the Service for Fighting Frauds and for Quality Control, or at an international level for the Codex Alimentarius Commission of FAO, as well as for other specialized organizations: EEC, IEO, APIMONDIA, etc. In order to secure minimum certainty of the honey quality control, it is wise to know and be able to check some essential criteria. Among them for instance: insoluble solids, water content, mineral salts, acidity, electric conductivity, sugar content, HMF, diastase activity, flavour, and toxines.