Assay of B Vitamins and other Water-soluble Vitamins in Honey

Honey is far from being a vitamin-rich food.
Only low concentrations of water-soluble vitamins are normally present in honey.
The amount of water-soluble vitamins in honey and their concentrations can be a strong indicator of the geographical origin and the freshness of the honey.
Analytical methods used to determine vitamins until now were based on spectroscopic, chromatographic, titrimetric and microbiological approaches.
Water-soluble vitamins in honey have been often determined using methods not specifically developed for this matrix.
While data published in the literature are quite homogeneous regarding the amount of B group vitamins in honey, the reported concentration of vitamin C in honey varies widely over several orders of magnitude.
It is possible that data relative to high concentrations in honey of vitamin
C are affected by some bias.
Only a proper validation of the whole analytical protocol offers guarantees
on the reliability of the data produced.