**1. Introduction**

Bee pollen is collected by honeybees (*Apis* spp.) and is stored and used as food for all development stages in the hive [1]. Bee pollen is a honey bee derivate that is produced by mixing flower pollens with nectar (and/or) honey and bee's salivary substances. The main compounds found in the bee pollen are: proteins (10–40% in dry weight), carbohydrates (13–55% in dry weight), lipids (1–13% in dry weight), dietary fibers (0.3–20% in dry weight), phenolic compounds (up to 2.5% in dry weight), fatty acids, minerals, amino acids, carotenoids and vitamins [2]. The phenolic compounds (e.g., flavonoids and phenolic acids) presented in the bee pollen are of a great interest for pharmaceutical industry due to their great importance for prophylaxis of diseases, particularly to prevent cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders, those having direct correlation with oxidative damage [3]. Given its unique composition, bee pollen is consumed as a food supplement and scientists considered that it is an important functional food [2,4,5] and was reported to have strong health properties such as antioxidant, antiallergen, anti-inflammatory, antiulcer, immune-stimulating, antimicrobial and anticarcinogenic [6,7]. The chemical composition of bee pollen is influenced by different factors such as: floral source, geographical origin, and harvesting technique [8–10]. Carbohydrates represent 13–55% in dry weight of the bee pollen depending on botanical and geographical origin of the product; the main

**Citation:** Oroian, M.; Dranca, F.; Ursachi, F. Characterization of Romanian Bee Pollen—An Important Nutritional Source. *Foods* **2022**, *11*, 2633. https://doi.org/10.3390/ foods11172633

Academic Editors: Liming Wu, Qiangqiang Li and Olga Escuredo

Received: 8 July 2022 Accepted: 25 August 2022 Published: 30 August 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 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/).

carbohydrates present are fructose, glucose and sucrose (more than 90% of the total carbohydrates content) [11]. Proteins represent a high percentage of bee pollen (10–40% in dry weight), but the amino acids define much better the biological value of the bee pollen; they play an important role in human nutrition (e.g., in metabolism, reduce excessive body fat, modulates gene expression, enhances skeletal muscle) [12–15]. The essential amino acids presented in the bee pollen represent 34.59% to 48.49% of the total content of amino acids; the main amino acids presented are aspartic acids, leucine, glutamic acid, proline and lysine [16]. The bee pollen was reported to have a high antioxidant activity mainly due to the polyphenols which generate a high free radical scavenging potential [10,14,17–20]. Among the phenolic compounds reported to be determined in the bee pollen were: kaempferol, caffeic acid, quercetin, isoquercetrin, galangin and chrysisn; the glycosides of isorhamnetin, quercetin and kaempferol are the predominant flavonoids in bee pollen [3,21,22]. Bee pollen is a rich source of oil (1–13% in dry weight) and in consequence an important source of fatty acids for hive development; they are important not only for their role as a structural component for cell membranes and energy, but also for their role for bees health [12,23–27]. The main fatty acids presented in the bee pollen are saturated fatty acids (e.g., myristic acid (C14:0), palmitic acid (C16:0), and stearic acid (C18:0)) followed by unsaturated fatty acids (e.g., oleic acid (C18:1), linoleic acid (C18:2), and alpha-linolenic acid (C18:3)) [28]. There were reported two polyunsaturated fatty acids (linoleic acid (omega-6 fatty acid) and alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3 fatty acid)) in the bee pollen, which cannot be biosynthesized by humans and bees [25].

In the last year there has been a high interest from humans and the scientific community for using natural sources as alternatives for synthetic drugs, however the knowledge regarding the bee pollen from Romania is little, and the consumption of it is not high. To gather the two demands, it is necessary to classify the pollen according to the botanical origin and to deeply characterize it from physicochemical point of view in order to achieve its characteristics. Bee pollen can be used as a food supplement due to its positive effects as an antioxidant or antimicrobial effects; moreover, the low content of sugars and saturated fatty acids make the bee pollen a perfect component for food diets [7,29]. The composition of bee pollen is correlated to the botanical origin, geographical origin (the climatic and pedological factors influence the chemical composition) and the processing techniques used [29,30].

Nowadays, the bee pollen is considered a functional food product due to its high nutritional value and chemical composition (e.g., vitamins, carotenoids, phenolic compounds) [5]. The bee pollen extracts can be used for complementary treatment of different diseases (e.g., benign prostatic hyperplasia, vasomotor symptoms), but the most important compounds that may pose a high pharmacological activity are phenolic acids, fatty acids, flavonoids, carotenoids [31]. In the market, the bee pollen can be found as capsules, granules, pellets and powders [32], and the daily recommended dose for an adult is from 20 to 40 g [5].

The aim of this study is to characterize 24 samples of bee pollen in terms of physicochemical parameters (pH, free acidity, protein content, oil content, moisture content), fatty acids, amino acids, carbohydrates, organic acids, individual phenolics compounds and FT-IR spectra. Until now there have been no other studies related to the characterization of bee pollen samples from the North-East part of Romania.
