Pollen spectrum of honey of Apis mellifera L. and stingless bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) from the semi-arid region of Bahia State, Brazil

Abstract

Pollen in honey reflects its botanical origin and melissopalynology is used to identify origin, type, and quantities of pollen grains of the botanical species visited by bees. This study aimed to identify the pollen spectrum of honeys from Apis mellifera and stingless bees produced in the semi-arid region of Bahia, Brazil. We analysed 78 honey samples, which were submitted to the acetolysis process for identification and quantification of pollen types. Fabaceae, Asteraceae and Euphorbiaceae were the most predominant families in pollen types. For Fabaceae, the most representative pollen types were Chamaecrista 1, Mimosa caesalpiniifolia, Mimosa pudica, Mimosa tenuiflora, Prosopis and Senna. The results indicate that the flora explored by the bees to collect nectar is diverse in the semi-arid region of Bahia and the honeys analysed were classified as multifloral.

Keywords:

• melissopalynology
• beekeeping
• melliferous flora
• pollen spectrum

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Additional information

Funding

This study was financed in part by the ‘Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil’ (CAPES) – Funding Code 001 and by the ‘Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia’ (FAPESB) – Funding Code PET0046/2012. The authors thank the ‘Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico’ (CNPq) for granting a scholarship to CALC (No. 305885/2017-0).