ABSTRACT
Honeyis a natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of plants.It consists essentially of different sugars predominantly fructose and glucoseas well as other substances such as organic acids, enzymes and solid particlesderived from honey collection. The flavour and aroma of honey are derived fromthe plant origin. Beeswax is the building construction materials used by beesto make their combs. It consists of long chain alkyl esters, cholesterylesters, lactones, free acids, hydrocarbons and moisture. The research has beencarried to access some biophysicochemical characteristics of honey and beeswaxobtained from different geographical and botanical sources. Parameters examinedfor honey include; aroma, flavour, moisture content, specific gravity,electrical conductivity, pH, mineral/ash content and antimicrobial activity.For the beeswax the moisture content, melting point and thin layerchromatographic fingerprint or profile have been examined. Results of the analysisindicated that the ranges for the parameters were; pH 6.03 – 3.39, moisturecontent 19.4 – 16.6g/100g, specific gravity 1.4426 -1.3242, electricalconductivity 0.80 -0.13 mS/cm and ash content 0.381 -0.046 g/100g. It isfurther concluded that honeys obtained from the nectar of sheabutter tree weregenerally more acidic than those obtained from the nectars of mango, baobab andcashew trees. The honey from the nectar of the baobab tree has the highest themineral content. The one from the sheabutter tree recorded the highestantimicrobial activity. There are significant differences between the honeysamples from Ejura and those from Northern Ghana.
