The effect of thermal treatment on stingless bee honey (Tetrigona apicalis) from UiTM Jengka / Nor Azliza Muhamad

This study was conducted to analyse the effect of thermal treatment on stingless bee honey (Tetrigona apicalis) from UiTM Jengka. Even though the stingless bee honey species are similar, factors such as geographical and botanical origin will influence to the production of honey with different pH quality properties, moisture content and total acidity. This research provides more information on the thermal treatment of stingless bee honey Tetrigona apicalis at temperature 0 °C, 40 °C, 45 °C and 55 °C in determining the effect on pH, moisture content, total acidity and functional group. Stingless bee honey of a species Tetrigona apicalis was used in the current study. From the analysis, the value for pH at temperature 0 °C, 40 °C, 45 °C and 55 °C were 3.30±0.010, 3.25±0.007, 3.22±0.000 and 3.20±0.007 respectively. The moisture content of each temperature were also found to be decreased. The total acidity observed from this research were found to be above 120.33 meq/kg. Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to determine the stretching vibration frequency in detecting the functional group of the compound. The greatest stretching vibration of the O-H in H2O bands with the maximum at 3274.13 cm-1 was at the temperature 0 °C followed by temperature 55 °C at 3272.89 cm-1, temperature 40 °C at 3269.66 cm-1 and temperature 45 °C at 3267.02 cm-1. Stretching vibrations for both C-O in C-OH and C-C groups in the carbohydrate structure was seem very fascinating that clearly shows various sugar composition of stingless bee honey at different temperature. It could be concluded that, there are no change for functional group in stingless bee honey (Tetrigona apicalis) when heated.