International Journal of Agricultural Science Research Vol. 3(2), pp. 025-030, February 2014 Available online at http://academeresearchjournals.org/journal/ijasr ISSN 2327-3321 ©2014 Academe Research Journals Full Length Research Paper Physico-chemical and antimicrobial assessment of honey of Apis dorsata from different geographical regions of Pakistan Adnan Akram 1 , Asma Sohail 1 *, Tariq Masud 1 , Asia Latif 1 , Saima Tariq 1 , Shahid Javed Butt 2 and Imran Hassan 2 1 Department of Food Technology, PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. 2 Department of Horticulture, PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Accepted 13 January, 2014 This study was designed to determine the physicochemical composition and antimicrobial activity against different food pathogens obtained from different honey samples of Apis dorsata of different locations of Pakistan, that is, Changamanga (Central Punjab), Multan (Southern Punjab), Mansehra (Upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; I) and Islamabad (Federal Area). These samples were analysed for their moisture, ash, nitrogen, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), diastase number (DN), reducing sugars, total sugars, sucrose contents, acidity and pH contents. It was observed that there was a significant difference among these tested parameters for these honey samples. The analysis showed moisture contents in the range of 22.87-26.70%, ash contents in the range of 0.03-0.1 g/100 g, nitrogen contents in the range of 0.27-0.39%, sucrose in the range of 2.5-4.57%, reducing sugars in the range of 69.62- 73.93%, HMF contents in the range of 37.14-46.60%, acidity in the range of 23.67-43 meq/kg, pH in the range of 3.09-3.61, diastase number (DN) in the range of 18.33-29% and total sugars in the range of 73.67-77.53. Highest antimicrobial activity was recorded for honey collected from Mansehra which gave zone of diameter as 23.3, 26.67 and 22 mm against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus respectively. Key words: Apis dorsata, honey, antimicrobial, hydroxymethylfurfural, physicochemical. INTRODUCTION Honey is a super saturated solution of different sugars such as glucose fructose, sucrose and some other found in minor amount (Aurongzeb and Azim, 2011). It is also defined as exudates from plants by combining with specific substance of their own, store in honey comb to ripen and mature (Codex Alimentarius, 2001; Al-Jabri, 2005; National Honey Board, 2008). The main compositional components of honey are sugars and water. Sugars are mainly composed of glucose and fructose and accounts for about 95-99% of total dry weight of honey (Alvarez-Saurez et al., 2009). Similarly, second most important component is water that affects the storage stability of honey. Moisture in honey depends upon several factors such as level of moisture during honey production and temperature in hive and extraction technique (Molan, 2002). Acid found in honey is gluconic acid (2, 3, 4, 5, 6-pentahydroxyhexanoic acid) which produces from enzymatic breakdown of glucose by glucose oxidase present naturally in honey (Bogdanov et al., 2008). Level of minerals is also very less with potassium as the most abundant mineral. Other commonly found minerals are copper, iron, manganese, calcium and phosphorous (Bogdanov et al., 2007). Vitamin B and C complexes like riboflavin, nicotinic acid and pantothenic acid are also found in honey of different types (Ciulu et al., 2011). Honey contains free amino acids which are 18 in number and an adequate number of proteins (Molan, 2002; Won et al., 2008; Amin et al., 2010). Acid components of honey are very less and round about 0.57% in most honey types (Wang et al., 2011). Hydroxy methyl furfural (HMF) is also found to be produced in honey which is not stored at proper temperature. So the HMF contents of honey may also depict the keeping quality of honey. The more the HMF contents of the *Corresponding author. E-mail: asma_amin166@hotmail.com. Tel: +92 51 9290694.