The impact of solid-state fermentation on bee pollen phenolic compounds and radical scavenging capacity

The aim of this study was to perform solid-state fermentation of bee collected pollen by lactic acid bacteria and evaluate the impact of fermentation to total phenolic compounds content, total flavonoid content and radical scavenging activity of fermented and non-fermented bee pollen. Natural fermentation of bee pollen in the hive, done by bees, results in well-known product—bee bread. This study was the first attempt to produce artificial “bee bread”. To our knowledge literature date about bee pollen artificial fermentation are scarce. Five different bee pollen samples were fermented with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and without bacteria. Obtained fermented samples were analyzed for total phenolic compound content, total flavonoid content and free radical (DPPH) scavenging capacity by spectrophotometric methods; phenolic profile was evaluated by HPLC. Fermentation revealed positive impact on the total flavonoid content (amount of flavonoids increased by 55–135%). The results were compared with the antioxidant activity of natural bee bread. Acquired data were processed with Matlab software carrying out calculations of various similarity measures between each pollen and fermented pollen sample and bee bread sample.