Mel de abelhas nativas e africanizadas do estado de Alagoas: composição química, segurança microbiológica e atividade terapêutica

Abstract

The rational development of bees is one of the most promising agricultural activities, since it is essentially self-sustaining family and therefore helps to maintain and restore the environment, through their role in pollination, and guarantee income to the producer who employs his family on it. Honey is the main product of this activity, being generated by honey bees - native or Africanized. Its chemical composition is quite varied, depending mainly of floral, entomological and geographical origin. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of honey from different entomologic sources of the State of Alagoas, in the dry season of 2008/09, by physico-chemical and microbiological criteria, and know their likely actions antioxidant and antimicrobial. Thus, 43 samples of honey (14 of Apis mellifera, 22 of M. scutellaris, 3 of M. quadrifasciata, 2 of M. subnitida e 2 of Plebeia sp) were collected from different municipalities of Alagoas. In relation to the physicochemical parameters, it were evaluated the content of reducing carbohydrates, total carbohydrates, sucrose apparent, moisture, electrical conductivity, pH, acidity, content of total protein, concentration of proline, diastase activity and hydroxymethylfurfural. Regarding to the antioxidant activity, it was evaluated in qualitative and quantitative terms of the content of total phenols and flavonoids, capture of the radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrilhdrazil (DPPH) and through the antioxidant power of reduction of Fe3 + → Fe2 + (FRAP method). It was also evaluated the microbiological safety of honeys through the detection of spores of Clostridium sp., and through the profile of various antimicrobial. We used the nonparametric test of Kruskal Wallis to 95% (p <0.05), because the data did not show normal distribution. It was also performed the correlation of Spearman to 95% significance, p <0.05, and 99% significance, p <0.01. With regard to the physico-chemical parameters, only electrical conductivity and sucrose showed no statistically significant difference (p <0.05) among the different species of honey bees. On the antioxidant activity, the honey of A. mellifera showed higher activity than those of natives, except in the case of honey of Plebeia sp, who stood out in a number of parameters compared to the other native bees. It was found also that the honey of native bees showed slight difference in comparizon to the honeys of A. mellifera regarding to its antimicrobial action, and it was not seen this variation on the activity of heat-resistant fungi, which were also much less sensitive than the bacteria to aqueous solutions of honey (25%). Therefore, the antibacterial action is probably due to the synergistic effect of high concentration of H+ions (low pH), carbohydrates (osmotic potential) and phenolic compounds that bind to glucose forming units of its cell wall, preventing their proper proliferation.