Research Projects

ABSTRACT

Chestnut honey is most suitable source of honey with high antimicrobial activity produced in Slovenia. Based on the research that has been done in cooperation with Department of Biology by young researcher from Tosama d.o.o., knowledge has been applied in new product line Vivamel. Production of new medical devices based on chestnut honey struggles on variability of honey quality and not well defined antimicrobial activity. Based on our own findings and experience as well some new recent studies of antimicrobial peptides we proposed development of rigid quality control tests to obtain proper data about chemical and biological properties of chestnut honey that we will be able to deduce observed variability in antimicrobial activity to ecological and technological causes during production of honey. We expect to correlate some environmental factors to the specific quality of chestnut honey, especially antimicrobial activity. With new findings related to beekeeping technology we want to get significantly improved beekeeping technology for production of high antimicrobial chestnut honey that can be used further for preparation of different medical devices and for specific medical applications, as well. To achieve technology advancement we want to clarify how bees are contributing to antimicrobial activity, especially related to the process of capping honey cells. Pilot application of innovative technology will enable proposal of specific techniques on wider scale by beekeepers that will be involved in medical-grade-chestnut-honey production. We want to clarify how bees are contributing to antimicrobial activity, especially related to the process of capping honey cells. During search for additional stimulations of bees we are expecting to get some answers to this crucial step of honey processing. With improved quality of honey, we have to ensure that along the production, high value product would not be contaminated with microbes that could cause some health issues. Altogether, we are expecting to get series of new basic science outcomes that will be also essential for improvement of quality of the production as well of final products based on medical grade chestnut honey.

THE PHASES OF THE PROJECT AND THEIR REALIZATION

We are reviewing our preliminary results and updating literature reviews. We had done first selective sampling during chestnut honey extraction, which will give us further direction in specific honey samples preparation in first full season. We have selected also samples based on regular sensory evaluations of honey quality underactive participation of the project participants. We also start with preparation of field instruments specifically tuned for chestnut honey evaluation.

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