Honey Analyses In Malaysia

Honey Analyses

In Malaysia, honey is chiefly obtained from species of honeybees known as Apis dorsata and to a lesser extent Apis cerana. The amount of honey produced in Malaysia is very low as compared to countries like United States and U.S.S.R. As a result we still import large quantities of low grade honey from Australia, China and the United States. Honey production in Malaysia is largely in the area of Pontian and Batu Pahat in Johor, Bagan Datuk in Perak and Kuala Langat and Kuala Selangor in Selangor. This research is to fulfil the objective of obtaining sufficient data on local honey so that a recommendation of a local honey standard can be put forward.

From the results obtained, the minimum moisture content of samples analyzed was 19.4 while two honeys from an undetermined foraging area contained 24.8 and 29% moisture. This is very much above the required standard of 17% which means that all the samples cannot be kept from fermenting without pasteurization prior to bottling.

The HMF values of honey samples is below the standard required of not more 10 mg/kg of sample except for Belimbing-2 honey. The low HMF content can be attributed to the absence of heat treatment and being fresh honey. The diastase activity is also low compared to the average USA honey. This is probably inherent in local honey, since freshly harvested honey also had low diastase activity.

The main sugars of honey (fructose, glucose and sucrose) were within the range of the standard (5%) except for a Coconutcoffee honey sample which had a high sucrose content (7.16%). The pH of the honey samples was within the range of 3.53 to 4.05 giving an average pH of 3.9.

Work is continuing on the chemical characteristics of Malaysian honey to arrive at recommendations for a Malaysian standard. The standard will also help to increase the quality of honey in Malaysia.