**1. Introduction**

3

Honey is one of the apian products more linked to the territory in which was produced, due to plant communities of the area, climate, soil and apicultural practices drive its characteristics. In Algeria, beekeeping is considered an integral part of the agricultural and rural routine. It is practiced in several regions but has been more important in the north of the country thanks to the appropriate climatic conditions and the grea<sup>t</sup> floristic biodiversity that provides honey resources during most of the year [1]. There are more than 20,000 beekeepers with 700,000 hives throughout Algeria, mainly are modern hives (Langstroth type and lesser Dadant type) and rarely are traditional hives. About 90% are independent and amateur and only 10% are professionals.

**Citation:** Ghorab, A.; Rodríguez-Flores, M.S.; Nakib, R.; Escuredo, O.; Haderbache, L.; Bekdouche, F.; Seijo, M.C. Sensorial, Melissopalynological and Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Honey from Babors Kabylia's Region (Algeria). *Foods* **2021**, *10*, 225. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10020225

Academic Editor: Paweł Kafarski

Received: 29 December 2020 Accepted: 19 January 2021 Published: 22 January 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

Babors Kabylia's region is situated at the North east of Algeria being one of the most interesting regions for honey production in bio-geographical terms [2]. It has been considered as a biodiversity hotspot because of the richness of its flora and the presence of high number of endemic plants [3]. Within this large plant biodiversity, melliferous plants constitute an important part, so that it is possible to produce a wide variety of honey types [4–7]. According to [8,9], the plant species visited by the bees as well as the environment in which the honey was produced seem to have a strong influence on its quality and quantity; hence, it is possible to relate it to its geographical origin and on the other hand, honey could be a footprint of its environment.

The tellien sector of the Babors is made up of folded and scaled units. The soils are of a shisty and marly calcareous nature. Its Mediterranean-type climate is characterized by a rainy season mainly consisting of thunderstorms and torrential rains, concentrated during a very wet period from October to March with an average annual rainfall of nearly 900 mm/year, and a dry season between June and September. The vegetation is characterized by woodlands and shrubs, spontaneous plants, agricultural fields and other grasslands and hedgerows, forming a relatively heterogeneous landscape with numerous forage opportunities for honeybees.

The relief is from the sea level to high mountains (more than 1200 m). At the north slopes of these mountains, the forest vegetation is very dense with woodlands of resinous species such as *Cedrus atlantica* (Endl.) Carrière and *Abies numidica* de Lannoy ex Carrière. and caducifolia oaks such as *Quercus canariensis* Willd. and *Quercus afares* Pomel. The southern slopes are practically devoid of forest vegetation being shrubs such as *Calicotome spinosa* (L.) Link. and some herbaceous plants as *Ampelodesma mauritanicus* (Poir.) Durand & Schinz. At altitudes below 1200 m, appear some degraded green oak forests (*Quercus ilex* L.), but is the domain of cork oak forest (*Quercus suber* L.), with firstly the humid facies of *Cytisus villosus* Pourr. and then, at lower altitudes, the thermophilic facies of *Erica arborea* L. Most of the beekeeping is practiced in this area. The maquis constitutes an interesting plant community for apiculture; more particularly *Erica arborea* and *Pistacia lentiscus* L. association, which covers the slopes located at less than 600 m of altitude in inland regions. It includes, among others, *Cistus salviifolius* L., *Arbutus unedo* L., *Clinopodium vulgare* L., *Lavandula stoechas* L., *Daphne gnidium* L. and *Genista tricuspidata* Desf. Its degradation also promotes a grea<sup>t</sup> biodiversity of spontaneous species characteristics of stripped soils: *Cistus monspeliensis* L., *Bellis sylvestris* Cirillo, *Hypochaeris radicata* L., *Hedysarum coronarium* L., *Stachys ocymastrum* (L.) Briq. and Poaceae as *Ampelodesmos mauritanicus*, *Briza maxima* L., *Aira tenorei* Guss., *Festuca coerulescens* Desf. or *Cynosurus echinatus* L. [10].

On the side of Draa El Kaid, between 500 and 700 m of altitude, close to the villages, grows a shrub with *Retama sphaerocarpa* (L.) Boiss., *Calicotome spinosa*, *Thymus munbyanus* subsp. *ciliatus (Desf.) Greuter & Burdet*., *Capparis spinose* L., *Ziziphus lotus* (L.) Lam. and *Teucrium polium* L. On the North, the Gouraya National Park, have a vegetation characterized by a degraded shrub with *Pinus halepensis* Mill. dominated by *Quercus coccifera* L., *Erica arborea*, *Erica multiflora* L., *Stachys ocymastrum* and *Glebionis coronaria* (L.) Spach. [10]. Main agricultural crops are near to the coast and the rivers. The most common are Solanaceae as potatoes, tomatoes, peppers or Brassicaceae as cauliflower crops. Fruit arboriculture is represented by orchards of orange, lemon, apples and sometimes medlar. Deserving a special mention for viticulture are olives and fig trees.

Honey, the fruit of collaboration between the plant and animal worlds, has always been considered a sacred product because of its attributed nutritional and therapeutic benefits [11]. Furthermore, beekeeping is an environmentally friendly practice useful to promote local economy in areas with water scarcity and to facilitate pollination services in highly valued ecosystems. As occurs in many parts of the world, in Algeria, people prefer local beekeeping and consumers ge<sup>t</sup> their honey directly from beekeepers, trusting them for the quality and botanical origin of the honey. However, the characteristics of local productions are poorly studied and most Algerian honeys are mislabeled. In this context, increasing knowledge in local honeys contributes to their valorization and to avoid frauds

for consumers. One of the main tasks is the authentication of the predominant botanical origin and quality. In this framework, sensory characteristics are the first attributes distinguished for consumers and together with melissopalynology deepen in the botanical and geographical origin of the honey [12]. Physico-chemical parameters complete the information to characterize local productions.

The objective of this study was to investigate the characteristics of the honey produced in one of declared Mediterranean biodiversity hotspots. For this purpose, thirty honey samples collected during the years 2018–2019, in the Babors Kabylia's region, a large geographical area of Northern Algeria, were analyzed.

### **2. Materials and Methods**

### *2.1. Study Area and Honey Samples*

The present study was conducted on 30 honey samples obtained from *Apis mellifera intermissa* apiaries situated throughout Babors Kabylia's region (North East of Algeria). The samples were collected during spring and summer seasons (2018–2019) and the honey extraction from the combs was by centrifugation (Table 1). Then the samples were stored in glass jars at −4 ◦C until its analysis.

**Table 1.** Geographical origin of honey samples and period of harvest.


During the harvest season, the main melliferous plants of the region were identified and reference slides of pollen were prepared [13], for comparison with the pollen types found in the honey samples.

The following determinations were carried out: sensorial analysis (color, smell, taste and aroma), melissopalynological analysis and physico-chemical analysis (quality parameters, phenol and flavonoid content and main mineral content).
