PHYSICO-CHEMICAL AND MICROBIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF HONEY FROM ALGERIA

Algeriaʹs apicole capacities are very important, though a low quantitative production is recorded. There is also a low consumption of this product maybe due to the expensiveness of the pure product and the availability of cheaper inverted sugars. Because there is less research on the bee products actually, we recovered 19 samples of honey from different parts of Algeria mainly Kabylia to compare their properties to foreign norms (codex and EU).The water content of the samples varied between 16.2% and 21.5% with an average value of 17.91% (21% is the maximal moisture for the EU and the codex alimentarius) [2-68]. Density values of the honey samples were evaluated between 1.34 and 1.58 with an average of 1.48. PH values ranged between 3.67 and 4.7 with an average of 4.03 (nectar honey). The ash varied from 0.13 to 1.02% with an average of 0.4%. Electrical conductivity ranged from 3x10-4 S / cm to 12x10-4 S / cm. According to our results, 26% of samples showed F/G ratios higher than 1.3 whereas, 74% of samples demonstrated low F/G ratios. 32% of our samples showed G/W ratios lower than 1.6; in contrast 68% of samples revealed ratios greater than 2 making them more sensitive to crystallization. HMF content fluctuated between 0.003 to 1.29 mg / kg with an average of 0.13 mg / kg far from the upper limits proposed by the EU and the codex 80 and 60mg/kg making the samples interesting for this qualitative parameter. We observed the presence of some moulds suggesting air contamination during harvesting, packaging or storage. Globally the samples are interesting qualitatively particularly from the sensorial and physical viewpoints.