Honey, propolis, and pollen are three important components of the beehive
produced by honeybees mixing different plant parts (nectar, resin and pollen) with their
own secretions, for further usage with different purposes in the hive. The fact that these
natural products have been associated with numerous health benefits has attracted the
attention of researchers resulting in a significant raise of scientific studies attesting their
biological properties. Among the various constituents of honey, propolis and pollen, the
phenolic compounds are the ones most frequently related to the beneficial properties of
these products and hence, one of the main investigated groups. Their characterization is
important to understand individual contribution(s) and synergistic effects of each
compound for the overall biological effects of the bee product. To pursuit this goal,
spectrophotometric techniques including HPLC, GC and TLC, alongside with the
respective detection methods such as DAD, FLD and MS, have been developed and
improved in order to offer better and more accurate separative performances. The aim of this review is to give an approach on the course that the chromatographic
techniques have taken until the most recent trends on this field applied to the separation
and characterization of the phenolic constituents of honey, propolis and bee pollen as
well as an overall perspective of variability in terms of phenolic composition that can
be found in the three bee products mentioned.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the
Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) to CERNAS (Project PEstOE/
AGR/UI0681/2011) and of FCT the European Union, QREN, FEDER,
COMPETE, for funding the Organic Chemistry Research Unit (QOPNA) (project
PEst-C/QUI/UI0062/2013; FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER- 037296).
