Authentication of Apis cerana Honey and Apis mellifera Honey Based on Major Royal Jelly Protein 2 Gene.

In Asia, honey is mainly produced by and . However, the price of honey is usually much higher than honey. Seeing considerable profits, some dishonest companies and beekeepers mislabel honey as honey or incorporate honey into honey. In the present study, we developed methods to discriminate honey from honey based on the (major royal jelly protein 2) gene. Two pairs of species-specific primers were designed. The amplification products of and were 212 and 560 bp, respectively. As little as one percent incorporation of honey in the mixture can be detected by duplex PCR. Additionally, another method based on the melt curve analysis using the same primers was also developed, allowing a rapid discrimination of real-time PCR product of different species. Our study shows that the entomological authentication of honey samples can be identified by nuclear genes other than mitochondrial genes and this extends the possibility of gene selection in identification. The authentication system we proposed could be a useful tool for discriminating honey from honey.