No abstract

Beside honey, honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) are able to produce many byproducts, including bee pollen, propolis, bee bread, royal jelly, and beeswax. Even if the medicinal properties of these byproducts have been recognized for thousands of years by the ancient civilizations, in the modern era, they have a limited use, essentially as nutritional supplements or health products. However, these natural products are excellent sources of bioactive compounds, macro-and micronutrients, that, in a synergistic way, confer multiple biological activities to these byproducts, such as, for example, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties. This work aims to update the chemical and phytochemical composition of bee pollen, propolis, bee bread, royal jelly, and beeswax and to summarize the main effects exerted by these byproducts on human health, from the anticancer and immunemodulatory activities to the antidiabetic, hypolipidemic, hypotensive, and anti-allergic properties.

No abstract

The incidence and concentration of pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) from Echium spp. plant have been defined in 103 Spanish honey samples. Each sample was examined to determine total pollen content, the percentage of Echium spp. pollen, and simultaneous measurements of PAs and their N-oxides concentrations by the HPLC-ESI/MS method to identify the potential origin of PAs in honey. PAs were found in 94.2% of the raw honey samples analysed, in the range of 1-237 µg kg(-1) (average concentration = 48 µg kg(-1)). The PA pattern was clearly dominated by echimidine, lycopsamine and their N-oxides, representing the 97.8% of total ∑PAs, and only echimidine and echimidine-N-oxide surpassed the 87% of total ∑PA content. Others PAs, seneciphylline and heliotrine-N-oxide, appear to be reported in a lower incidence and concentration (average of 3 and 1 µg kg(-1), respectively). The Pearson Chi-squared test (p ≤ 0.01) confirms the non-correspondence between pollen plants and PA content. This study was also realised to generate a dataset in order to evaluate the potential risk of Spanish honeys containing PA plants belonging to the genera Echium.