Abstract

Md. Abdul Mannan*, Nargish Marjhan, Md. Khairul Alam and Abul Khair

ABSTRACT

Honey is a sweet, viscous liquid produced by honeybees. It is a very important food item referred by the physicians for the treatment of male infertility because honey contains fructose which is the ready source of food for spermatozoa. Pollen of the honey makes it incredibly healthy because pollen contains many vitamins, minerals and antioxidants which play an important role to decrease inflammation, as well as to improve immunity, menopausal symptoms and wound healing. The present study was conducted to analyze the commercial honey for pollen count. The honey samples of ten different brand were collected from the supper shops of Dhaka, Bangladesh and the natural honey samples from honeycomb were collected from different areas of Bangladesh. The widely accepted technique, microscopic analysis, was used to quantify the pollen of commercial honey and natural honey. In case of commercial honey, the results showed that 10% of the honey samples were very poor in pollen grains contents (< 2000 pollen grains / gm of honey), 30% of the samples were poor in their content of pollen grains (2000 - 10000 pollen grains /g honey), 20% of the samples were rich in their content of pollen grains (10,000 - 50,000 pollen grains /g honey), 30% of the samples were more rich in their content of pollen grains (50,000 - 100,000 pollen grains /g honey) and 10 % of the samples were very rich in their content of pollen grains (>100000 pollen grains /g honey). In case of natural honey, the results showed that 10% of the honey samples were more rich (50,000 - 100,000 pollen grains /g honey) and 90% were very rich in their content of pollen grains (>100000 pollen grains /g honey). Attention is required about pollen grains counts of commercial honey because without pollen grains, honey is nothing but a sugar syrup.