## 5 Conclusions  
This study is the first attempt to compare the VOCs in ACC and AMC. HS-SPME/GC-MS technique was applied to study the differences in the volatility of honeycombs from ACC and AMC. A total of 114 common volatile substances were identified in ACC and AMC. Results of PCA and OPLS-DA have shown that there was a significant difference in VOCs between ACC and AMC honeycombs. Potential markers in AMC are mainly derived from propolis, such as benzaldehyde, octanal, limonene, ocimene, linalool, \(\alpha\)-terpineol and decanal. 2-phenylethanol, phenethyl acetate, isophorone, 4-oxoisophorone, betula, ethyl phenylacetate, ethyl palmitate, and dihydrooxophorone were richer in ACC than AMC, which may be the reason why _A. cerana_ hives are cleaner. This study provides a practical method to find antibacterial substances in the honeycomb. The comparison of VOCs will  
Figure 4: Quantitative results of the potential markers in ACC.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Compounds** & **CAS No.** & **RT** & **RI \({}^{\mathbf{a}}\)** & **RI \({}^{\mathbf{b}}\)** & **Major Ions** & **B bioactivity** & **Reference** \\ \hline
2-Phenylethylanol & 60-12-8 & 15.232 & 1118 & 1114 & 91, 92, 122, 65 & Antibacterial, antifungal & [36; 37] \\ Isophorone & 78-59-1 & 15.391 & 1121 & 1118 & 82, 71, 91, 138 & Antibacterial & [39] \\
4-Oxoisophorone & 1125-21-9 & 16.573 & 1145 & 1142 & 68, 96,152,117 & NT & \\ Dihydrooxophorone & 20547-99-3 & 17.753 & 1169 & 1170 & 139, 154, 56, 42 & NT & \\ Betula & 119-36-8 & 19.063 & 1196 & 1187 & 120, 152,92, 65 & Antibacterial & [39] \\ Ethyl phenylacetate & 101-97-3 & 21.551 & 1250 & 1244 & 91,164, 65 & NT & \\ phenethyl acetate & 103-45-7 & 22.060 & 1261 & 1244 & 104, 43,91 & Antifungal & [37] \\ Ethyl palmitate & 628-97-7 & 49.060 & 1998 & 1996 & 88, 101, 43,57 & NT & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
Notes: Rla: retention index calculated as determined on HP-SMS column using the homologous series of n-alkanes (C6–C40); Rlb: retention index from the NIST network database; NT: not tested.  
\end{table}
Table 3: Potential markers in ACC identified by GC\(-\)MS.  
help to further understand their role in maintaining the cleanliness of the honeycomb and provide basic data support for the development of honeycomb as a new functional food resource.  
The following supporting information can be downloaded at: [[https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/foods11203204/s1](https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/foods11203204/s1)]([https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/foods11203204/s1](https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/foods11203204/s1)), Table S1: Compounds in ACC and AMC detected by SPME-GC-MS (\(n=3\), the equivalent of 1-octanol). All GC-MS raw data can be found on [[https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/ny3](https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/ny3) pjs9z9g]([https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/ny3](https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/ny3) pjs9z9g) (accessed on 4 September 2022).  
Conceptualization, X.G., S.Y., F.N. and L.L.; Data curation, X.G., Y.L., S.Y., S.Q. and M.L.; Formal analysis, X.G., Y.L., S.Y. and S.Q.; Funding acquisition, F.N. and L.L.; Methodology, S.Q., M.L., F.N. and L.L.; Project administration, L.L.; Supervision, F.N.; Visualization, L.L.; Writing--original draft, X.G.; Writing--review & editing, F.N. and L.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32001779 and 21667018), Jiangxi Agriculture Research System (No. JXARS-14), The Science and Technology Department of Jiangxi Province (20212 AE191010), and Research Project of State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology (SKLF-ZZB-202123).  
Data Availability Statement: Data is contained within the article or Supplementary Materials.  
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.