Honeys

Honey has been well known and widely consumed by all populations since prehistoric times and antiquity, at least as far back as 13,000 years ago, as Spanish cave paintings testify.

However, given the complexity of its composition, describing it is a tricky business. In the dictionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries, honey is defined as "a sweet substance produced by certain insects such as bees". Since 1976, "honey has been defined as the natural sweet substance produced by honey bees from the nectar of flowers or secretions from living parts of plants, or from insect excretions left on living parts of plants, which the bees gather, transform and combine with specific materials they secrete, and which they store, concentrate and leave to mature and ripen in the combs of the hive" [NF V 35 001 (1991)]. Recent studies show that the quality of the various honeys consumed worldwide depends on numerous biolo-gical, climatic and ecological factors, as well as on the extraction method.

To market a quality product, the sale of honey is governed by a whole range of legislation. However, some unscrupulous beekeepers and traders have always been willing to modify and adulterate this natural product in an attempt to increase its market value.

The study therefore comprises three parts:

• honey production ;

• characteristics of honeys obtained by centrifuging :

  • sensory, physical and chemical analysis. Ageing ;

  • analysis of plant elements. Typification and origin ;

• and techniques to identify them.

Throughout this work, only techniques little known to beekeeping laboratories have been developed. For other, now classic techniques, readers can refer to the various publications cited in the text, where they are developed.

Throughout the article, a large number of botanical families, genera and species (taxa) are cited. For greater clarity, their names are given in French when precise enough [1] , otherwise in Latin according to the terminology used in "The Plant-Book" [2] .

Acknowledgements. This work is dedicated to the memory of R. Darchen, who devoted his entire life as a researcher (CNRS) to the understanding of hive dynamics and honey production.

Some data were provided by I. Moussa in chemistry (AFSSA), by M. Laniau of GEM and by M. Jeanne of OPIDA in the field of honey economics. Most...