PHYSICOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF SPANISH COMMERCIAL EUCALYPTUS HONEYS

The physicochemical characteristics of 25 samples of commercial Eucaly ptus honey (Eucalyptus sp.), bought off the shelf, were analysed and 3 5 parameters were measured, including contents of sugars and minerals, total nitrogen, proline, water content, pH, acidity, HMF, diastase ac tivity, colour, ash, insoluble solids and electrical conductivity. The samples contained a mean of 18 pollen types (range 14-27); the 64% of samples which contained more than 70% Eucalyptus pollen were consider ed to be unifloral. In 92% of the samples, Eucalyptus was the most abu ndant pollen, at over 45% of total pollen found. Maturity, purity, det erioration and adulteration criteria indicated that the quality of the honeys was good. Samples that did not have a dominant percentage of E ucalyptus pollen showed low values for the length of the main waveleng th in spectrophotometric analysis and very small concentrations of mag nesium.