Publications
American foulbrood testing: what options do you have?
14 Jun 2023
HONEY
American foulbrood (AFB) is a bacterial infection that affects honey bees and has disastrous effects on a
colony’s health. The disease is caused by the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae, which produces spores that can
survive for over 35 years in beehives and beekeeping equipment. The spores are able to survive in a wide
range of disinfectant solutions and temperatures so the advised way to destroy the bacteria is to burn the
affected equipment/honey.
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Opening dates: CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR 2024
19 Nov 2024
HONEY
DAIRY
METH & LEAD
R&D
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR 2024 HOURS, Food Division
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American foulbrood testing: what options do you have?
14 Jun 2023
HONEY
American foulbrood (AFB) is a bacterial infection that affects honey bees and has disastrous effects on a
colony’s health. The disease is caused by the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae, which produces spores that can
survive for over 35 years in beehives and beekeeping equipment. The spores are able to survive in a wide
range of disinfectant solutions and temperatures so the advised way to destroy the bacteria is to burn the
affected equipment/honey.
Read More
A comparison of Analytica’s Tutin results over the years
07 Feb 2024
HONEY
Tutin is a natural plant toxin which is covered by a Ministry of Primary Industries food standard issued in early 2016.
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Mānuka’s Unique Antimicrobial Activity
04 Dec 2023
HONEY
In most honeys, the antimicrobial activity comes from the hydrogen peroxide content that is produced by the
enzyme glucose oxidase (Mandal & Mandal, 2011). But with honeys like mānuka, we know there is another
activity source that does not come from hydrogen peroxide. This activity is called non-peroxide activity (NPA).
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AFB and mānuka DNA testing in the lab
02 Aug 2023
HONEY
For many years, Analytica Laboratories has been performing Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing to detect the levels of American foulbrood (AFB) spores and mānuka pollen DNA in honey. The basis of this test is rather simple; we extract, amplify, and quantify a section of DNA code in the honey sample that is specific to the analyte we are looking for. In this case it is the DNA of the AFB bacteria or the DNA of the mānuka flower’s pollen.
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What Happens to your Honey in the Lab?
14 Jun 2023
HONEY
Analytica Laboratories (now part of ALS Global) is New Zealand’s leading honey testing laboratory. We have developed methods like the C4 Sugar Screening test and the 3-in-1 test that are now very commonly used by all New Zealand labs nowadays. In this article, I am going to give you a brief rundown on how we perform some of the common honey tests, to give you a better understanding of what your honey goes through once it arrives at our doors.
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What happens to your honey as it ages?
04 Apr 2023
HONEY
The inspiration for this article has come from a honey sample that has been stored at ambient temperature for almost eight years. This honey’s test results showed an HMF of almost 4000mg/kg and, if you’re curious, it had an almost barbecue sauce scent to it!
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Microbiological Testing of Honey Explained
06 Feb 2023
HONEY
Microbiological testing can be performed on your honey for many reasons, but the main reason is to ensure the honey has been handled hygienically from the hive to the finished product.
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The Impact of MPI's Definition of Manuka Honey
09 Apr 2018
HONEY
A review of hundreds of honey samples tested between August 2017 and February 2018 provides an indication of the impact that the new MPI mānuka honey definition will have.
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Understanding Tutin Compositing
14 Oct 2019
HONEY
Composite testing is a popular and affordable way of confirming that tutin concentration in honey samples meets MPI requirements. We have reviewed results for all tutin composite samples tested at Analytica in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Eighty-seven percent of these samples had low results, meaning that all the individual samples in those composites were below 0.7 mg/kg of tutin. About 13% had composite results that required a re-test of individual samples.
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