Search

Beeswax adulteration in the apiculture sector represents a growing problem worldwide due to the lack of clearly defined purity criteria, the absence of official quality (authenticity) controls, and the inconsistency of the analytical methods used for adulteration detection. Although beeswax authentication is implemented in other regulatory sectors (pharmaceutical and food industry), the classical physico-chemical analytical methods used for determination of beeswax purity exhibit inconsistencies for the detection of adulterants. In this study, an inventory was made on a comprehensive set of analytical methods and the corresponding purity criteria used for the detection of the most common beeswax adulterants (paraffin, stearin and/or stearic acid) from existing legislations and scientific literature. The selected analytical methods (classical physico-chemical, and advanced instrumental, i.e. chromatographic and spectroscopic analytical techniques) were weighted by three independent experts against two criteria: feasibility and analytical performance in detecting targeted adulterants. Classical methods for which measurement data were available (melting point and acid/saponification/ester values for paraffin-adulterated vs. non-adulterated beeswax samples) were retained and further validated by a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. These methods were also validated by generating the corresponding calibration curves for paraffin detection using paraffin-beeswax mixtures containing different proportions of paraffin (ranging from 5 to 95%, w/w). The results of the ROC analysis revealed that a tentative detection of paraffin in beeswax can be achieved by a combination of at least two physico-chemical methods. However, for a reliable detection of the most common adulterants in beeswax, physico-chemical methods should be complemented with advanced analytical tools. i.e. GC-MS, HTGC-FID (MS) and/or FTIR-ATR spectroscopy, depending on the expected adulterant.

There is no systematic report about propolis chemical biodiversity from the Adriatic Sea islands affecting its antioxidant capacity. Therefore, the samples from the islands Krk, Rab, Pag, Bi&scaron, evo and Korčula were collected. Comprehensive methods were used to unlock their chemical biodiversity: headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and hydrodistillation (HD) followed by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS), Fourier transform mid-infrared spectroscopy (FT-MIR), ultra high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector and quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-DAD-QqTOF-MS) and DPPH and FRAP assay. The volatiles variability enabled differentiation of the samples in 2 groups of Mediterranean propolis: non-poplar type (dominated by &alpha, pinene) and polar type (characterized by cadinane type sesquiterpenes). Spectral variations (FT-MIR) associated with phenolics and other balsam-related components were significant among the samples. The UHPLC profiles allowed to track compounds related to the different botanical sources such as poplar (pinobanksin esters, esters and glycerides of phenolic acids, including prenyl derivatives), coniferous trees (labdane, abietane diterpenes) and Cistus spp. (clerodane and labdane diterpenes, methylated myricetin derivatives). The antioxidant potential determined by DPPH ranged 2.6&ndash, 81.6 mg GAE/g and in FRAP assay 0.1&ndash, 0.8 mmol Fe2+/g. The highest activity was observed for the samples of Populus spp. origin. The antioxidant potential and phenolic/flavonoid content was positively, significantly correlated.

Analytical parameters were determined for the first time in honey produced in the honeycomb constructed on comb foundations adulterated with 90% of paraffin (PF-H) and compared to honey ripened in genuine beeswax (BWF-H) using physico-chemical and spectroscopic techniques (1H NMR, FTIR-ATR, HS-SPME/GC–MS). Water content was significantly higher (SH) and glucose/water ratio significantly lower in PF-H samples. The contents of acetic and citric acid were marginally significantly higher (MSH) in PF-H samples. These findings suggest that adulterated beeswax affects composition of honey as the set of altered parameters indicate chemical changes leaning towards fermentative processes. Moderately changed headspace chemical profile of PF-H honey was determined depending on the floral source (pentanal, α-pinene and benzaldehyde were SH in BWF-H sunflower honey ; butanal was MSH, and 2-phenylethanol was more abundant in BWF-H black locust honey). Higher percentage of nonanal, octane and β-damascenone were found in PF-H samples that could indicate more intensive oxidation.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) develops methodologies and tools for the detection of emerging risks in food and feed. This includes the identification of drivers of emerging risks, such as food frauds, which requires innovative approaches. In this study, an unsupervised machine learning technique called the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model, was applied on a media corpus in the view of detecting rapidly specific food fraud incidents in the media, i.e. on the Europe Media Monitor Medical Information System (EMM/MEDISYS). LDA topic model can explore large collection of documents discovering the themes associated with the corpus and organize and summarize text documents identifying topics comprised in them, where a topic is defined as a pattern of words with their probability to belong to it. As a specific food fraud incident, beeswax adulteration was taken as an example. Beeswax can be adulterated for financial gain, and, although it is a product from apiculture, it might enter the food chain when it is introduced as honeycomb in honey pots. With the beeswax example, a total of 2276 news articles were retrieved on EMM/MEDISYS and classified into 10 topics showing different levels of relatedness to beeswax adulteration. A manual screening of all articles allowed to validate the classification made by the topic model. The topics that were found the most relevant contained indeed articles on beeswax adulteration incidents reported from official sources. In addition, those topics contained signals of potential emerging risks in the cosmetic and food wrapping sectors. The remaining topics highlighted the emergence of new beeswax market opportunities which supported the identified signals. It is concluded that the LDA topic model can be used to process rapidly information in the media, support the definition of more specific food fraud filters on EMM/MEDISYS and be of direct use for all stakeholders involved in the monitoring, assessment and management of food frauds.

Experimental varroacidal treatments of honey bee colonies were conducted on five apiaries (EA1&ndash, EA5) situated at five different geographical and climatic locations across Croatia. The aim of this study was to assess the comparative efficacy of CheckMite+ (Bayer, Germany), Apiguard (Vita Europe Ltd., England), Bayvarol, C, (Bayer, Germany), Thymovar, (Andrma BioVet GmbH, Germany), and ApiLife Var, (Chemicals Laif SPA, Vigonza, Italy) for controlling the honey bee obligatory parasitic mite Varroa destructor in different conditions in the field during summer treatment. The relative varroa mite mortality after treatments with applied veterinary medicinal products were EA1 (59.24%), EA2 (47.31%), EA3 (36.75%), EA4 (48.33%), and EA5 (16.78%). Comparing the relative efficacy of applied varroacides, the best effect was achieved with CheckMite+, and the lowest for honey bee colonies treated with Apiguard (statistically significant difference was confirmed, p &lt, 0.05). Considering the lower efficacy of thymol-based veterinary medicinal products observed on all EA in these study conditions, it may be concluded that their use is limited under different treatment regimes. Despite unfavourable weather and environmental conditions, with exceptions of EA5/EA5&prime, and EA1, the relative varroacidal efficacy of authorized veterinary medicinal product treatments in moderately infested honey bee colonies ensured normal overwintering and colony development during next spring.

Samples of Satsuma mandarin (Citrus unshiu Marc.) nectar, honey sac content and honey were analyzed by FTIR-ATR spectroscopy and reference methods. The spectral analysis allowed detection of the major chemical constituents in C. unshiu nectar- to-honey transformation pathway thus providing information on the intensity and location of the compositional changes occurring during this process. The preliminary results showed that in average more than one-third of sugar-related nectar-to-honey conversion takes place directly in the honey sac ; the average sugar content (w/w) was 17.93% (nectar), 47.03% (honey sac) and 79.63% (honey). FTIR-ATR results showed great spectral similarity of analyzed honey samples and small degree variations in both sugar and water content in nectar samples. The spectral data revealed distinctive differences in the chemical composition of individual honey sac contents with the most intensive and complex absorption envelope in the spectral region between 1175 and 950 cm-1 (glucose, fructose and sucrose absorption bands).

Control of the nosema disease poses a major challenge, and therefore, treatment of this serious para - sitic disease using natural preparations could be of great benefit. The aim of this study was to test the performance of zeolite clinoptilolite as a curative measure against honeybee colonies ( Apis mellifera L.) naturally infected by Nosema ceranae. The histopathological structure, and the content and distribution of mucosubstances and his - tochemical activity of aminopeptidase and non-specific esterase in the midgut mucosa of honeybees originating from colonies fed sugar syrup supplemented with zeolite minerals was studied. A decline in the number of spores in honeybees fed with zeolite clinoliptolite was observed on the first sampling day (Day 10; 53.25 15.15 million spores/bee), though a statistically lower number of spores in comparison to the control was confirmed on Day 20 (41.08 ± 9.4 million spores/bee), Day 30 (28.42 ± 7.79 million spores/bee) and Day 40 (24 ± 6.25 million spores/bee). The possibility of using natural zeolites as a dietary supplement for honeybee colonies as a preventative measure and for the reduction of the deleterious effects of nosemosis is discussed.

Headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and ultrasonic solvent extraction (USE), followed by GC-MS/FID, were applied for monitoring the nectar (NE)/honey-sac (HoS)/honey (HO) pathways of the headspace, volatiles, and semi-volatiles. The major NE (4 varieties of Citrus unshiu) headspace compounds were linalool, -terpineol, 1H-indole, methyl anthranilate, and phenylacetonitrile. Corresponding extracts contained, among others, 1H-indole, methyl anthranilate, 1, 3-dihydro-2H-indol-2-one and caffeine. The major HoS headspace compounds were linalool, -terpineol, 1, 8-cineole, 1H-indole, methyl anthranilate, and cis-jasmone. Characteristic compounds from HoS extract were caffeine, 1H-indole, 1, 3-dihydro-2H-indol-2-one, methyl anthranilate, and phenylacetonitrile. However, HO headspace composition was significantly different in comparison to NE and HoS with respect to phenylacetaldehyde and linalool derivatives abundance that appeared as the consequence of the hive conditions and the bee enzyme activity. C. unshiu honey traceability is determined by chemical markers: phenylacetaldehyde, phenylacetonitrile, linalool and its derivatives, as well as 1H-indole, 1, 3- dihydro-2H-indol-2-one, and caffeine.