The present manuscript reports on the effect of Post-harvest Maturation for honey preservation on the quality and bacterial profiles of Apis dorsata and Heterotrigona itama honey from Malaisia. The results support the conclusions, they suggest that post-harvest maturation is an appropriate cheap and easy-to perform preservation technique for honey, it increased DPPH radical scavenging activity improved probiotic bacteria profile of the honey. The results are of interest. There are however several points which need to be addressed by the Authors:
1. In the Introduction, please explain the Tualang honey comes from A. dorsata, and Kelulut honey from H. itama. The words Tualang and Kelulut should not be written in italic, they are not names of organisms.
2. Line 120: What about trechalulose? This disaccharide is known to be present in most stingless bee honeys all over the world, it is even suggested to include it as a marker of stingless bee honey: see for example Zawawi, N.; Zhang, J.; Hungerford, N.L.; Yates, H.S.;Webber, D.C.; Farrell, M.; Tinggi, U.; Bhandari, B.; Fletcher, M.T. Unique physicochemical properties and rare reducing sugar trehalulose mandate new international regulation for stingless bee honey. Food Chem. 2022, 373, 1315
3. Subsection 2.4. has to be renamed: TPC and DPPH scavenging activity are not bioactive properties.
4. Lines 142 – 150: This text does not belong to Materials and Methods. The Authors should place it in the Discussion.
5. Line 230: the word “hydrolysed” should be deleted. The process is not hydrolysis.
6. Line 293: The Authors should try to explain how new phenolic compounds could be obtained under these conditions.