Feeding Sugars to Stingless Bees: Identifying the Origin of Trehalulose-Rich Honey Composition

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Hungerford, Natasha L
Zhang, Jiali
Smith, Tobias J
Yates, Hans SA
Chowdhury, Sadia A
Carter, James F
Carpinelli de Jesus, Matheus
Fletcher, Mary T
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2021
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Abstract

The beneficial disaccharide, trehalulose, is a feature of stingless bee honey, while not dominant in any other foods. By experimentally feeding sugar solutions to confined colonies of the Australian stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria, the origin of trehalulose has now been established. Complete conversion of fed sucrose was observed, by analysis of the honey, forming trehalulose (64-72%) with lesser erlose (18-23%), fructose (9-12%), and minor glucose detected. Remarkably, feeding solutions of glucose/fructose (1:1) mixtures did not result in trehalulose/erlose formation. Hence, stingless bees with natural access to floral nectar high in sucrose will produce honey high in trehalulose, with its associated beneficial properties. Any temptation to artificially increase trehalulose content by feeding sucrose to stingless bees would produce "fake" honey lacking key natural phytochemicals available to the foraging bee. The sucrose-fed fake and natural honey were however readily distinguished via isotope ratio mass spectrometry δ13C values, to combat such potential indirect adulteration.

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Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

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This publication has been entered as an advanced online version in Griffith Research Online.

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Chemical sciences

Engineering

Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences

Meliponini honey

Tetragonula carbonaria

erlose

ion chromatography

isotope ratio mass spectrometry

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Hungerford, NL; Zhang, J; Smith, TJ; Yates, HSA; Chowdhury, SA; Carter, JF; Carpinelli de Jesus, M; Fletcher, MT, Feeding Sugars to Stingless Bees: Identifying the Origin of Trehalulose-Rich Honey Composition, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2021

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