LUCRĂRI ŞTIINŢIFICE, SERIA I, VOL.XXI (1) 212 THE INFLUENCE OF ASSORTMENTS AND QUALITY OF BEES HONEY ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR LUMINITA PIRVULESCU 1 , TABITA ADAMOV 1 , DIANA RABA 1 , CLAUDIA SIRBULESCU 1 , DENISA-MIHAELA CASSIAN 1 , DESPINA-MARIA BORDEAN* 1 1 Banat’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine“King Michael I of Romania” from Timisoara, Faculty of Management and Rural Tourism *Corresponding author’s e-mail: despina.bordean@gmail.com Abstract: Honey is a food high in nutritional value, which at the same time has medicinal properties constituting an excellent natural antibiotic. Honey is very effective in correcting nutritional deficiencies, its nutritional value being given by its composition: easily assimilable carbohydrates (glucose and fructose), mineral salts, ferments and vitamins. The paper makes a study on the impact of the assortment and the quality of bee honey on the consumption behavior of a group of subjects, using the survey method, applying the questionnaire as an investigative tool. Key words:bees honey quality, survey method, consumption behavior INTRODUCTION Honey is a special product, this name can not be given to another product, its production exclusively involves bees. Honey has a special sweet taste, a high energy and nutritional value. [9, 11]. According to the European Honey Standards developed by the FAO/WHO Committee in the Codex Alimentarius, “honey is the sweet substance that bees produce from nectar of flowers or from living parts of plants that the bees collect, convert and combines with certain specific substances, and stores them in honeycombs”. [13, 14] Physically, honey is a semifluid, viscous or crystallized, with specific flavor, color and characteristic sweet taste. From a chemical point of view honey is a food with a very high content of carbohydrates and an important source of other substances: minerals, vitamins, enzymes, organic acids, etc. [5, 11, 12] Honey is the food with the most therapeutic properties. Can be used as food energizer in cases of fatigue, neurasthenia, heart disease, liver disease, defending the body against infections. [5, 6] Since ancient times honey has been an important ingredient of medicine because of its curative properties. Honey is more than a food, being a valuable source of antioxidants: caffeic acid, coumaric acid, phenolic acids and their derivatives, carotenoid compounds, vitamin C [1, 3, 8]. The use of natural remedies for treating infections is a very old method and honey is one of the oldest traditional medicines considered to be important in the treatment of many human diseases. Honey also has antiseptic and antibacterial properties [2, 7, 15]. The major ingredients of honey are water and carbohydrates, which account for about 96% of honey. Typically, honey harvested, processed and preserved in good condition has a moisture content of between 17-18%. [4, 11] The sensory characteristics specific to bee honey are: foam-free appearance, no visible foreign bodies, color ranging from light yellow, continuing with yellow-gold, yellow-orange, dark yellow, ruby, yellow-brown, dark brown. The smell and taste of honey differs according to the type of honey, with honey with a slight or more pronounced flavor, a sweet taste, homogeneous, fluid or viscous, crystallized consistency. Honey produced by bees that are fed with sugar syrup does not have honey-specific flavor due to the lack of volatile substances from nectar. [4, 10, 11].