Excerpt:
Until recently the carbohydrates of honey were considered to be a simple mixture of glucose, fructose, and sucrose, with small amounts of a poorly characterized higher weight substance called honey dextrin. The reported occurrence of maltose (1) was confirmed by a fermentation procedure (2). Since the advent of chromatography, four articles have described chromatographic studies on honey carbohydrates. These have been reviewed in detail elsewhere (3). In all cases identification was based only upon R, values, reaction to spray reagents, and, in one case (4), enzyme reactions. These latter investigators reported the presence in honey, in addition to glucose and fructose, of sucrose, maltose, isomaltose, erlose, kestose, melezitose, raffinose, dextrantriose, 4-glucosyldextrantriose, and a higher
oligosaccharide. In none of this work were compounds isolated and no physical properties were determined.
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