Analysis of bee products using chromatographic techniques : a review

Abstract

Bee products are very valuable for consumers due to their unique properties, which cover the “power” of plants and bees itself. Bee products are used as food or are introduced in the folk medicine from the ancient times. Honey is the most favourable out of all bee products due to it sweet taste and characteristic aroma. Bee bread, bee pollen, propolis, bee wax, royal jelly and bee venom are also very valuable bee products with a wide spectrum of biological activity. The latter two are not so easily available for the consumers and mainly are used in pharmacy products. However the use of bee products as food or as medicine, requires determination of their composition, evaluation of quality and biological activities or verifying the authenticity. The variety of chromatographic techniques allows to evaluate many parameters concerning to the bee products composition or impurities. Sugar composition can be determined by different methods, e.g. HPLC with refractometric detection, HPLC with pulsed amperometric detection, ion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection. GC-FID and GC-MS also can be applied for sugar analysis; just in this case the derivatization of carbohydrates must be performed to make them volatile. Aroma of bee product can be analyzed by GC with various detectors, after different sample preparation techniques, i.e. direct headspace analysis, solid phase microextraction (SPME), solvent extraction (SE), Likens-Nickerson, purge-and-trap or hydrodistillation. The residues of pesticides, fungicides and antibiotics in bee products can be determined using HPLC or GC after a proper sample preparation. [...]