Ukraine is Moving Forward from “Undiscovered Honey Land” to Active Participation in International Monitoring of Honey Bee Colony Losses

Федоряк, Марія; Angelstam, Per; Kulmanov, O; Tymochko, L; Rudenko, Svitlana; Волков, Р. А.

doi:10.1080/0005772x.2018.1554279

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…The market of beekeeping products is becoming more globalized and, as a result, competition for foreign markets is intensifying. Ukraine is one of the top five global producers and exporters of honey (Dankevych et al, 2018;Fedoriak et al, 2019). To maintain a high level of competitiveness, it is necessary to ensure that the quality of honey products meets both international and national standards.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physicochemical quality indicators of honey: An evaluation in a Ukrainian socioecological gradient

Zhuk¹,

Sytnikova²,

Fylypchuk³

et al. 2022

Regul. Mech. Biosyst.

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Physical and chemical quality indicators of 65 polyfloral honey samples from three administrative districts of Chernivtsi region in South Western Ukraine were studied. The chosen administrative districts were Putyla (representing the ‘Traditional villages’ stratum), Storozhynets (the ‘Intermediate’ stratum) and Khotyn (the ‘Intensive agriculture’ stratum), which reflect a steep gradient of social and ecological conditions such as land cover and land use, level of economic development, culture and demography. The quality of honey was determined in accordance with the requirements of the Ukrainian national standard and the EU Directive relating to honey (or Codex Alimentarius Honey Standard) by using the following indicators: reducing sugars and moisture content, diastase activity, free acidity, pH, electrical conductivity, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and proline content. The profile of carbohydrates was analyzed, in particular glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, trehalose, melezitose, raffinose. The ratio of fructose to glucose (F/G) was determined. All tested samples complied with the international standards for the mass fraction of reducing sugars, diastase activity and hydroxymethylfurfural content. For physical and chemical parameters, the studied honey samples were of high quality. The content of the reducing sugars in the honey samples varied within the range of 66.0–97.6%. The fructose content ranged from 342 to 549 mg/g, and the glucose content variation ranged within 283–517 mg/g. The average fructose/glucose ratio was 1.2 for honey samples from the three studied districts. Besides fructose and glucose, some oligosaccharides, such as maltose, trehalose and melezitose, were found in the examined honey. Melezitose was detected in the honey samples from ‘Traditional village’ (21 samples) and ‘Intermediate’ (5 samples) districts. The total variability of HMF content in the studied 65 honey samples from apiaries in the three districts of Chernivtsi region ranged from 0.19 to 30.8 mg/kg. The minimum moisture content was found to be 16.2% (in the ‘Traditional village’ and ‘Intermediate’ strata), and 22.2% was the maximum (in the ‘Intermediate’ stratum). Our studies have shown that free acidity of the samples varied within the range 13.5 to 58.0 meq/kg. Proline content variability for the three studied geographical areas ranged from 82.3 to 1201.2 mg/kg. The studied samples of honey had a low pH level (~ 3.7), high content of proline (~ 513 mg/kg) and reducing sugars (~ 80%), which indicates its nutritional value and naturalness. Deviations from the honey standards in moisture content, acidity and electrical conductivity was revealed in 8% to 10% of all samples.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physicochemical quality indicators of honey: An evaluation in a Ukrainian socioecological gradient

Zhuk¹,

Sytnikova²,

Fylypchuk³

et al. 2022

Regul. Mech. Biosyst.

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Learning Landscape Approach Through Evaluation: Opportunities for Pan-European Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research

Angelstam

Manton

Souza

et al. 2019

Innovations in Landscape Research

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Stakeholders’ views on sustaining honey bee health and beekeeping: the roles of ecological and social system drivers

et al. 2021

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Context Honey bees provide multiple ecosystem services. Comparisons of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) can improve the understanding of the factors affecting honey bees and beekeeping. Objectives Stressing the need for SES analyses, we explore beekeepers’ perceived factors affecting bees and beekeeping, test the hypothesis that honey bee colony losses are associated to agricultural land use intensity, and discuss the role of beekeeping for rural development. Methods We used as a case study the steep gradient in SES in Ukraine’s Chernivtsi region with three strata: (i) traditional villages, (ii) intermediate and (iii) intensive agriculture. In each stratum, we analysed the social system using five open-ended focus groups. Regarding the ecological system, we analysed data about winter loss rate of honey bee colonies, number of colonies per beekeeper, the average amount of supplemental feeding, and proportion of beekeepers treating against Varroa mite. Results Thirty-three themes were extracted, of which 73% concerned the social system at multiple levels of governance. The number of themes increased from the traditional stratum with higher winter colony losses to the intensive agriculture stratum with lower losses. This does not support the hypothesis that the intensive agriculture per se affect honey bees negatively. Conclusions Social system factors dominate over ecological factors, and interact across scales. This requires systems analyses of honey bees and beekeeping. We see beekeeping as a social innovation enhancing stakeholders’ navigation in social systems, thus supporting rural development in countries in transition like Ukraine.

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Ukraine is Moving Forward from “Undiscovered Honey Land” to Active Participation in International Monitoring of Honey Bee Colony Losses

Cited by 5 publications

References 29 publications

Physicochemical quality indicators of honey: An evaluation in a Ukrainian socioecological gradient

Physicochemical quality indicators of honey: An evaluation in a Ukrainian socioecological gradient

Learning Landscape Approach Through Evaluation: Opportunities for Pan-European Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research

Stakeholders’ views on sustaining honey bee health and beekeeping: the roles of ecological and social system drivers

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