Stingless bees produce honey rich in the beneficial disaccharide, trehalulose

Abstract

Stingless bee (Meliponini) honey produced by native bees in tropical/sub-tropical regions has long been valued for its health benefits and distinctive flavour. Previous analyses of Meliponine honeys reported maltose, (with lesser fructose and glucose), based only on co-elution with sugars by chromatography. We examined stingless bee honey from 5 species: Tetragonula carbonaria and Tetragonula hockingsi from Australia, Geniotrigona thoracica and Heterotrigona itama from Malaysia and Tetragonisca angustula from Brazil and found, instead of the disaccharide thought to be maltose, high levels of an unusual disaccharide, which by LC-MS/MS did not match any of our available disaccharides. This unusual disaccharide was isolated, and determined unambiguously by LC-MS/MS and NMR analyses, to be trehalulose, an isomer of sucrose. Further analysis of 36 honey samples from Australia and Malaysia by high performance ion chromatography, showed trehalulose ranging from 18 – 58 g per 100 g of honey, present together with fructose and glucose. Trehalulose has not been previously identified as a major food component. The presence of trehalulose with its known beneficial properties (low GI and acariogenic) supports the health value of stingless bee honey. Further work aims to identify the origin of this disaccharide and how to optimise its levels in stingless bee honey.