The antioxidant activities based on the free radical scavenging, reducing power, and bleaching inhibition were investigated for the three commonly used honeys in Malaysia, namely, tualang, gelam, and acacia honey. The antioxidant capacity of the honey samples was correlated with their biochemical constituents such as total phenol, total flavonoid content, and total water-soluble vitamins (vitamin B1, B2, B3, B9, B12, and vitamin C). The total flavonoid content of honey samples was strongly correlated with the three antioxidative processes (r = 0.9276–0.9910). In contrast, the total water-soluble vitamins was found to be well correlated with the free radical scavenging activity (r = 0.8226). Vitamin B3 was likely to be in the highest concentration, which covered for 69–80% of the total vitamin content. A number of five phenolic acids, three flavonoids, and two organic acids had also been detected from the honey samples using UPLC-MS/MS, without sugar-removal procedure.

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Raw honeys from four different bee species, namely the honey bees and stingless bees, were classified based on its chemical profiles, mineral contents and heavy metals. Chemical profiles including proximate composition, predominant sugars, hydroxymethylfurfural content, and diastase activity were determined following official methods while mineral and heavy metals contents were obtained from atomic adsorption spectrometry (AAS) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) measurements, respectively. Both hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis show high possibility of distinguishing honey by its bee species of honey bees (Apis spp.) and stingless bees (Heterotrigona itama) based on distinctive differences in chemical compositions and mineral contents. Potassium and sodium were the major elements in raw honey samples at average of 904.9 and 617.6 mg/kg, respectively. Honey from stingless bee contained more protein, 0.85 g/100 g and less total sugar of fructose and glucose at 24.99 g/100 g. The information of bee speciation origin of honey bees and stingless bees enhances the identity of honey on the product labelling.