Detection of Honey Adulterations

Bees are sometimes fed with cane sugar. Often glucose syrup is poured over honeycomb from which the honey has been extracted, and the mixture sold as genuine honey. Gelatin may be added to increase the weight or to thicken the more voluble adulterants. The ash of genuine honey is not over 0.3 per cent. Whenever the ash is greater than this it should be tested for calcium sulfate, the presence of a considerable quantity of which is an almost certain proof that starch glucose or invert sugar has been added to the honey. Sulfates may be detected by adding barium chloride to the aqueous solution of the honey and precipitating barium sulfate. If the ash is high and considerable chlorides are present, molasses has quite probably been added to the honey. The presence of chlorides may be determined by the addition of silver nitrate which precipitates silver chloride.

Molasses (sugar and water): A cotton wick dipped in pure honey, when lighted with a match stick, burns. If adulterated, the presence of water will not allow the honey to burn. If it does, it will produce a crackling sound.

Commercial invert sugar (mixture of glucose and fructose) : Fiche’s Test: Mix about 5 gr.of the honey with 10 ml of ether in a mortar, using a pestle. Decant off the ether extract into a chin apish. Repeat twice with more ether and collect all the extract in the same dish. Allow the ether to evaporate off at room temperature. To the remaining residues in the dish, add a large drop of a 1% solution of freshly sublimed resorcinol in concentrated hydrochloric acid. Immediate appearance of a cherry red color indicates commercial sugar.

Cane Sugar: The presence of cane sugar can be detected with certainty only by the use of the polarimeter. Its presence in large quantity gives a high right-handed rotation.

Gelatin: Dilute a portion of the sample and add a solution of tannic acid. A precipitate indicates the presence of gelatin. Treat the sample with alcohol, and gelatin, if present, will be left undissolved, and it will give its characteristic odor on ignition.

Maple Syrup: This is sometimes adulterated with glucose, molasses, golden syrup, and with ordinary white sugar. There are no satisfactory simple chemical tests for these substances. Pure maple syrup should have an ash not lower than 0.35 to 0.40 per cent. A lower ash shows that cane sugar has been added. A higher ash would indicate the presence of molasses or brown sugar stock. These last two adulterants, if present in great abundance, may be detected by taste.

Glucose : This may be detected by the use of the polarimeter. Pure maple s)n*up gives 53.1 to 60 direct, and — 22.2 to — 21.9 after hydrolysis. Maple syrup adulterated with glucose gives 80 to 100 direct and 18.9 to 45.6 after hydrolysis (according to Ogdon).