Honey, apart from a variety of stable elements, contains floral pollen grains that are collected by honeybees along with the nectar. The presence of the floral pollen grains affords the possibility of identifying the botanical and geographical origin of honey [1].

Diversity of vegetation in Algeria makes possible diversification of honey production. The apiculture in Algeria is widely practiced in the mountainous region (Kabylie, Aurès mountains), in the coastal plains (Mitidja), in the interior plains (Mascara) and in the valleys of large wadis (Soummam), the deserted areas of the highlands and the southern region of the country being the only exceptions to honey production [2]. The botanical origin of honey is one of the most important parameters of honey quality [3,4,5]. The quality of honey depends on the melliferous plants that bees use in their nourishment [6]. The nectar obtained from different melliferous plants has different characteristics and applications, both in medicine and in the food industry [4].

Taxa of pollen are used to indicate the floral nectar sources utilized by bees to produce honey [7,8,9,10] and are also an essential tool to indicate the geographic origin of the honey [11,12].

The aim of this work was to provide information on the geographical and botanical origin of the honey samples collected and to identify the nectar sources foraged by the bees.

The result of 10 studied samples in this work shows that only four pollen types presented frequency higher than 45%; the main botanical species for honey production in Algeria are found to be Eucalyptus globulus, Thymus vulgaris, Citrus sp. and Lavandula angustifolia, (Figure 1).

Honey sample 1, from the locality Ménaouer, contained pollen grains from Thymus vulgaris at a percentage of nearly 58%; thus, the pollen of this species is dominant, suggesting that this plant is the chief source of pollen and nectar in bee foraging.

Honey sample 5, from the locality Freguig, has Lavandula angustifolia as the predominant pollen. Of the ten samples, three (S8, S9 and S10) presented very high percentages of Eucalyptus globulus; in two samples (S2 and S7), Citrus was predominant (Table 1).

Quantitative analysis has shown low pollen concentrations in the studied honey samples, 5 samples belonged to the I class of representativity (under-represented honeys, with less than 20,000 pollen grains in 10 g honey), 5 to the II class (normal honeys, with 20,000 to 100,000 PG/10 g). Our results are quite in agreement with Ouchemoukh et al. [21]; these authors found in their study of 11 Algerian samples lower PG/10 g values, ranging from 20 × 103 until 40 × 103. Their samples were collected in various regions of the province Bejaia.

The results of a study by Makhloufi et al. [16] on the pollen richness of 66 Algerian honeys found the values for the PG/10 g for the classes I, II, III and V to be, respectively, 33%, 40.9%, 22.7% and 3%.

The results of qualitative pollen analysis indicate the diversity of resources utilized by honeybees in the region of investigation. The botanical families Myrtaceae, Rutaceae and Lamiaceae were most frequently found in the samples.

Out of 66 Algerian honeys analyzed by Makhloufi et al. [22], the main botanical species for Algerian honeys were found to be Eucalyptus sp., Umbelliferae (above all Pimpinella), Hedysarum, Cruciferae, Compositae (mainly Carduus), Trifolium sp. and, to a lesser extent, Echium, Rubus and Citrus.

With the dendogram that corresponds to the geographical origin of the honey samples, it was possible to distinguish two different groups (Figure 2). The first group is composed of honey produced in Ain fares; the second cluster clearly creates two separate subgroups. The first subgroup includes the stations Guetna, Hacine and Bouguirat, with Citrus sp. being the most common plant species pollen in the samples of these stations. The second includes the stations Sidi ali, Hadjadj and Sirat, a representative amount of Eucalyptus globulus occurred in these samples. The botanical composition of regional honey depends on the climatic conditions during the apicultural period.

From the 10 studied samples, a total of 36 taxa of nectariferous honey plants were identified. The specific richness of the investigated honey varied from 1 to 9 taxa. The melissopalynological analyses showed that the most dominating pollens in honey samples were Myrtaceae, Rutaceae and Lamiaceae. Cluster analysis distinguishes two different groups of Algerian honey.