Chemical composition of bee bread (perga), a functional food: A review

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Background: Bee bread can be defined as a popular bee product (behind honey, propolis, beewax, bee pollen, royal jelly and apitoxin), a natural substance, a mixture of bee pollen, honey and lactic acid bacteria that is the result of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) fermentation of bee pollen collected by bees from the natural environment, and is the protein basis of food in the beehive. Results: Primarily, honey bees use bee bread for brood growing (nutrition), but humans use bee bread in folk medicine and apitherapy, but also as a functional food, according to the bread's powerful healing properties and content of different molecules (bioactive, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, etc.). The biological properties of bee bread depend on its chemical composition, the melliferous plants in the region, geographical area, season, climatic conditions, etc. Conclusion: According to its chemical and nutritional properties, bee bread is more valuable (higher biological value, faster digestibility and better chemical composition if compared to bee pollen) than bee pollen. Bee bread contains about 250 different substances, such as proteins, macro- and microelements, lipids, free amino acids, fatty acids (linoleic, linolenic and arachidonic), flavonoids, phenolic compounds, vitamins, and enzymes. Many different scientific articles have been published in international journals with focus on the chemical composition of honey, bee pollen and propolis. This paper contributes to the knowledge of the chemical composition, nutritional value and bioactivity of bee bread.

Keywords

• Chemical composition
• Bioactive compounds
• Bee bread
• Fatty acid
• Antioxidant activities