Results
The PERMANOVA showed significant differences between honey samples from stingless bees and honey bees (p-value = 0.001, df = 1, R2 = 0.230). Our NMDS plot (Fig. 2) illustrated these differences, showing a clear general distinction between the two discrete clusters of samples. The composition of a few samples did not follow this pattern and had opposite characteristics, resulting in a small number of errors (4 out of 75 samples) for stingless bees in the classifications of the conditional random forest models. Major fermentation markers (acetic and lactic acid) and sugars (fructose and glucose) were recorded in all honeys, and they were the most relevant compounds to discriminate the two groups of honeys. Stingless bee honeys had lower sugars levels and higher fermentation marker levels than honey bees samples. The amino acid levels also varied significantly among our samples independently of the bee taxa. Finally, our indicator compounds analysis showed no significant association between bee taxa and a specific compound.