Healthy sugar origin in stingless bee honey revealed

Date:
August 24, 2021
Source:
University of Queensland
Summary:
Stingless bees are found throughout tropical and subtropical parts
of the world and produce significantly less honey than their
European honey bee counterparts (Apis mellifera) which are the
world's major honey production species. However, stingless bee honey
is highly prized as a specialty food, noted in Indigenous cultures
for its medicinal properties, and attracts a high price. Now new
research has identified that the Tetragonula carbonaria stingless
bee, which is native to Australia, is a powerhouse at converting
regular table sugar into the rare low GI sugar trehalulose, found
only in stingless bee honey and not as a major component in any
other food.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The mystery of what creates the rare, healthy sugar found in stingless
bee honey, has been solved by researchers at The University of Queensland,
in collaboration with Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services.


==========================================================================
The team found that the sugar trehalulose -- which is not found in other
honey or as a major component in other food -- is produced in the gut
of the bees.

UQ organic chemist and research leader, Dr Natasha Hungerford said the
origin of this rare sugar had been a puzzle since the discovery of high
levels of sugar trehalulose in stingless bee honey.

"We did not know if the trehalulose was coming from an external source -
- perhaps from native flora," Dr Hungerford said.

"It could have been something in the resin from trees that stingless bees collect and take home to their nest -- because unlike European honey bees, which store their honey in honeycomb made only from beeswax, stingless
bees store their honey in small pots made from a mix of beeswax and tree resins." Stingless bees are found throughout tropical and subtropical
parts of the world.



==========================================================================
The larger, European honey bees (Apis mellifera) produce significantly
more honey, and are the world's major honey production species.

However, stingless bee honey which is highly prized as a specialty food,
is noted in Indigenous cultures for its medicinal properties and attracts
a high price.

"Trehalulose is more slowly digested and there is not the sudden spike
in blood glucose that you get from other sugars," Dr Hungerford said.

She said the UQ team was keen to determine if the trehalulose content
in stingless bee honey could be increased, potentially making stingless
bee honey more valuable.

"We fed confined colonies of the Australian stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria the most common sugars found in flower nectar -- sucrose,
glucose and fructose.



========================================================================== "What we found is that stingless bees have a unique capacity to convert
sucrose to trehalulose and produce honey rich in trehalulose in their
gut." Native plants such as Grevillea and Banksia are believed to have
nectar high in sucrose, and it is believed bees feeding from these plants
will naturally produce honey rich in trehalulose.

The team also found that stingless bees fed a solution containing
table sugar could convert it into a 'honey' containing high levels
of trehalulose.

"But the 'honey' they produce from table sugar does not meet the
requirements of real stingless bee honey which is made from nectar,"
Dr Hungerford said.

"The honey we produced in the lab is in fact fake honey, and we were
able to distinguish it from natural honey by isotopic testing.

"This trehalulose-rich syrup that was produced might be considered a
potential secondary product of stingless bees, but it is not honey.

"It is also not good for the health of the hive to feed the bees only
table sugar.

"Honey contains a complex range of phytochemicals from nectar, making
it vitally important for brood rearing and the expansion of the
colony population." The UQ team will now work to identify different horticultural crops that have nectar high in sucrose.

"We want to investigate the nectar sugars present in crops such as
macadamia, lychee and avocado, and whether stingless bee pollination of
these crops could result in a high level of trehalulose in their honey,"
Dr Hungerford said.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Queensland. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Natasha L. Hungerford, Jiali Zhang, Tobias J. Smith, Hans
S. A. Yates,
Sadia A. Chowdhury, James F. Carter, Matheus Carpinelli de Jesus,
Mary T.

Fletcher. Feeding Sugars to Stingless Bees: Identifying the Origin
of Trehalulose-Rich Honey Composition. Journal of Agricultural
and Food Chemistry, 2021; DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.1c02859 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210824135350.htm

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