CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Pollen analysis of honey or melyssopalynology is of great importance for quality control of honey produce in any types of beekeeping practice. Honey always include numerous pollen grains (mainly from the plant species foraged by honeybees) and honeydew elements (like wax tubes, algae and fungal spores) that altogether provide a good fingerprint of the environment where the honey comes from. Thus the pollen analysis can therefore be useful to determine and control the geographical and botanical origin of honey even if sensory and physicochemical analyses are also needed for a correct diagnosis of botanical origin and quality assurance of honey produced from any part of the world. Moreover pollen analysis provide some important information about honey extraction and filtration and fermentation (Russman, 1998), some kind of adulteration (Kerkuleit et al., 1995) and hygienic aspects such as contamination with mineral dust, soot, or starch grains (Louveaux et al., 1978).
Melissopalynology was an early branch of palynology (study of pollen and spores). The first work on the microscopy of honey dates back to the end of the 19th Century (Pfister,1895) and the studies carried out by Zander (1935) contributed to build the scientific basis of this analytical technique. This method of melissopalynology was later elaborated and proposed by the International Commission for Bee Botany (ICBB) and was published (Louveaux et al., 1978).
Even if this method has shortcomings, but the others recent methods have improve the accuracy of the analysis both for the identification of pollen types and for the precision of the respective concentration values (Low et al.,1989; Lutier and Vaisiere,1993; Jones and Bryant, 2001) the ICBB method remains well established method in most European Laboratories involved in routine honey analysis and it is considered adequate for verifying whether the pollen spectrum complies with the declared botanical and geographical origin of a honey sample.
Since many laboratories adopted some minor changes to the original ICBB method in their routine work, the need for harmonizing, implementing and validating this method was discussed at the meetings of the International Honey Commission of Apimondia (1998, 1999). A working group was organized, in order to work out some further details on the method, reduce some of the variability arising from sample preparation and the numbers of grains counted, and provide, through ring trials, the parameters of the method (repeatability and reproducibility).
A procedure with more detailed instructions to determine the spectrum of pollen types in honey in terms of relative frequencies (qualitative melissopalynological analysis) was prepared after some further discussions, contributions and revisions, the consistency of method was tested in a ring trial performed in 1999 and the precision parameters were calculated. The team by 2003 finalized a Procedure for determining the absolute numbers of plant elements in honey (i.e. Quantitative Melissopalynological Analysis) and another ring trial was performed to determine its precision parameters.
1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT
Both local and commercial honey dealers find it difficult in formulating an objective opinion about the botanical origin of any type of honey; also identification of the pollens, estimation of the percentage in which they are present and the eventual identification of element probably indicative of the quality of the honey as the pollen spectrum of a tropical honey is quite different from that of the Mediterranean honey; even varieties of honey produced in areas close to each other or with similar climate present differences.
Some years ago, researches realized that melissopalynology could be used not only to ascertain whether a honey sample was produced in Italy or elsewhere and whether it was monofloral or multifloral, but also to designate it geographical origin quite precisely and so the idea of quality honeys with controlled geographical denomination began to take shape (Ricciardelli d’Albore, 1997).
Practical problems in most cases organoleptic microscopical and physicochemical analysis when carried out enable the fraud to be detected. In particular cases such as sugar adulteration, sophisticated devices like mass spectrometer can be useful. This was used to detect the frauds perpetrated in the Middle East (Syria) (Ricciardelli D Albore, 1997).
1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
Melissopalynology is of great importance as it reveals the numerous pollen grains in honey. It also provides a good ‘finger print’ of the environment where the honey comes from. Due to the fact that pollen of different plant species can be distinguished and flora of different regions varies with pollen analysis which can be useful to determine and control the geographical and botanical origin of honeys. The results obtained from this study will proffer the appropriate method for analysis of honeys in Nigeria to ascertain quality and trace the origin of the product.
1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of this research is to recognize the pollen types (Qualitative analysis) and percentage of each pollen present (Quantitative analysis) in honey produced off-season in the beekeeping practice in Oyo State Nigeria.
The specific objectives of the study are:
i. To determine the botanical origin of honey samples from two different locations in Oyo State, Nigeria.
ii. To classify honey samples into uni-floral and Multi-floral.
iii. To ascertain the quality of honey produced from Oyo State, Nigeria.
1.4 DEFINITION OF TERMS
i. Melissopalynology is a branch of palynology (study of pollen) to build botanical basis of honey (Pfister, 1895).
ii. Multifloral honey is the honey that is made up of two or more pollen types e.g. pollen from citrus, moringa and mangoes.
iii. Unifloral honey is the honey that is made up of only one pollen type.
iv. Bee hive is a zoological term which refers to a shelter constructed for housing a colony of honeybees.
v. Bee smoker is a device used in beekeeping for calming honeybees. It is designed to generate smoke from the shouldering of various fuels, majorly cow dung.
