*3.4. Free Sugars of Bee Pollen*

The carbohydrates represent the main compounds present in the bee pollen; the main compound determined was fructose followed by glucose, melesitose, trehalose, sucrose, maltose, raffinose and turanose in the bee pollen [4]. Fructose and glucose were in the same range as those reported for bee pollen from Colombia, Italy and Spain, while sucrose was much lower (5.1–6.2% for Colombia, Italy and Spain, and for the samples analysed in this study) [22]. In other studies, others sugars were reported such as arabinose, melibiose, isomaltose, melesitose, ribose, turanose and trehalose but they do not represent more than 1% of them [43]. The fructose/glucose ratio was between 1.13 and 2.43 (*p* < 0.05) with a mean ratio of 1.46. The Spanish bee pollen was reported to have a fructose/glucose ratio between 1.13 and 1.53 [44], the Polish bee pollen was reported to have a fructose/glucose ratio between 1.03 to 2.51 [30], while the Brazilian bee pollen was reported to have a fructose/glucose ratio between 1.01 to 2.24 [40]; one possible reason of the differences between the samples may attributed to the harvesting seasons [30,40].
