The two primary goals of these investigations were to compare
honeys from an expanded number of stingless bee species known
in Thailand (11 of the described 32 species) and to examine
intra-specific variability in the one species most frequently used
in commercial stingless bee beekeeping (T. laeviceps-pagdeni
complex).
A summarized physicochemical profile of the 28 honey samples,
while exhibiting variability, especially between species, conforms
to previous finding for stingless bee honey from South
America, but with some noted variations. When compared to the
cosmopolitan A. mellifera honey standards, Thai stingless bee
honey revealed a higher moisture content (31 g/100 g); higher
ash content (0.531 g/100 g); lower pH (3.6); higher acidity
(164 meq/kg); lower diastase activity (1.5 Gothe); slightly elevate
HMF (6.6 mg/kg) and quantitatively lower total carbohydrates
(total sugars, 51 g/100 g).
Concerning the sugar spectrum, the disaccharide maltose was
detected in only 3 of the 11 stingless bee species we examined,
but when present it was frequently the dominant carbohydrate.
Our in-depth look at multiple samples from T. laeviceps-pagdeni
honey, a Southeast Asian species where previous research on its
honey composition has been undertaken (Suntiparapop et al.,
2012) gives similar results to past research except for the parameters
of HMF (higher) and lower levels of the reducing sugars