Toward Quality Standards for Brazilian Native Stingless Bee Honey Based on Physicochemical and Antioxidant Analyses

Samples of stingless honey from six species of stingless bees collected at nine stations in different Brazilian states were analyzed by chemometric methods for moisture, impurities and solid residues, ash, pH, electrical conductivity, proteins, proline, identification of adulteration, presence of substances such as phytochemical analysis, color and levels of HMF. The color (C) varied between water white and dark amber. Proteins (mL) varied from 0.00 (S5) to 2.00 (S4). Lund test from 0.00% (S5) to 3.10% (S6), total phenols (TP%) from 0.04 to 13.45 mg/100 g GAE, total flavonoids from (TF%) 0.03 to 0.11 mg/100 g QE, and HMF from 0.00 to 14.28 mg/kg. There was an increased amount of PRO in S7 and S8. S1, S4, S7 and S8 had the best antioxidant activity (EC₅₀). A heat map showed that S2 was the sample with the highest %Brix, %insoluble solids, %humidity and pH, but the lowest TP%. S7 had the highest C, proline (PRO), TF%, EC₅₀ and EC. S4 had high %A and intermediate results between groups 9, 5, 6 and groups 1, 3, 8. The sample honey S6 showed a high content of TP (13.45 ± 0.98 mg/100 g of GAE). In contrast, stingless honey samples exhibited better DPPH scavenging activity (EC₅₀: 21.45 ± 0.54 to 53.71 ± 0.24 mg/mL). The chemometric classification of stingless bee honey revealed that the physicochemical properties contributed significantly to the classification of stingless bee honey from different bee species. With all the information presented here, the results obtained and correlations from multivariate statistical analysis, we propose the creation of a standard for the technical regulation of Brazilian native bee honey, based on the literature and quality parameters described here.