EVALUATION OF FOOD TYPE INTRODUCED TO THE HONEYBEE COLONIES ON CONTAMINATION OF EXTRACTED HONEY WITH MICROORGANISMS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Plant Protection Dept., Fac. of Agric., Ain Shams Univ., Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

The aim of the present work to study the effect of foodtypes (sugar syrup fortified with Garlic (Allium sativum), Lemon (Citrus limon), Garlic plus Lemon), pollen grains and plain sugar syrup (1:1)) on contamination of honey with bacteria, fungi and yeasts. The data indicated that application of sugar syrup plus extracts of garlic, lemon, garlic plus lemon or bee pollen led to decrease population of bacteria, fungi and yeasts compared with control treatment (plain sugar syrup 1:1). The fungi were the least population in all the treatments compared with bacteria and yeasts, meanwhile population of bacteria were moderately and the yeasts were the most occurrence. Garlic plus lemon treatment was the most effective against population of microorganisms, but garlic and lemon separate were moderately effective and bee pollen treatment was the least effective compared with other treatments. According to isolation and identification procedures, three bacterial species (Bacillus brevis, Bacillus cereus and Clostridium botulism), four fungal species (Aspergillus apis, Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium sp. and Penicillium sp.) and three yeasts species (Debaromyces sp., Lipomyces sp. and Saccharomyces sp.) were determined according to cultural, morphological and physiological characters. Cladosporium botulism bacterium was the most frequency compared with other bacteria species, but Aspergillus apis fungus was the most frequency compared with other fungi species and Lipomyces sp. was the most frequency compared with other yeasts.

Keywords