INVESTIGAÇÃO DA INFLUÊNCIA DE ECOSSISTEMAS EM VARIÁVEIS FÍSICO-QUÍMICAS DE MEL DE APIS MELLÍFERA DO PARÁ

Honey is a food product produced by honey bees, from the nectar of flowers or excretions of plant-sucking insects, which the bees collect, transform, combine with their own specific substances, store and leave to mature in the hive’s combs. Its flavor and aroma vary according to the origin of the plant. Honey is extremely concentrated in sugars. This study carried out a physical-chemical analysis on twenty honeys of the Apis mellífera species in a single municipality in the northeast of Pará, discriminating the samples according to their ecosystem (mangrove or capoeira) through multivariate statistical methods, contributing to their quality control. The results found suggest good quality of the samples, but care must be taken when storing them, in addition to the fact that several physicochemical variables were shown to be dependent on their origin (mangrove honey and capoeira honey).