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Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago

BACKGROUND: Honey is a versatile and complex substance consisting of bioactive chemicals which vary according to many bee and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to assess the physical and antimicrobial properties of five honey samples obtained from three species of bees; two stingless...

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Autores principales: Brown, Elijah, O’Brien, Michel, Georges, Karla, Suepaul, Sharianne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7076972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32178659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-020-2829-5
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author Brown, Elijah
O’Brien, Michel
Georges, Karla
Suepaul, Sharianne
author_facet Brown, Elijah
O’Brien, Michel
Georges, Karla
Suepaul, Sharianne
author_sort Brown, Elijah
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Honey is a versatile and complex substance consisting of bioactive chemicals which vary according to many bee and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to assess the physical and antimicrobial properties of five honey samples obtained from three species of bees; two stingless bees, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa and one stinging bee, Apis mellifera (fresh and aged honey). Samples were acquired from apiaries across Trinidad and Tobago. An artificial honey, made from sugar, was also used for comparison. METHODS: Physical properties such as appearance, pH, moisture content, sugar content and specific gravity were determined. Antimicrobial activity was assessed utilizing the agar diffusion assay and comparison to a phenol equivalence. The broth microdilution test was performed to determine the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and the minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBCs) of the five honey samples against four common pathogens, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pyogenes and Haemophilus influenzae. RESULTS: All honey samples were acidic, with pH values ranging from 2.88 (M. favosa of Tobago) to 3.91 (fresh A. mellifera). Sugar content ranged from 66.0 to 81.6% with the highest values detected in stinging bee honeys of the A. mellifera (81.6 and 80.5°Bx). Moisture content ranged from 16.9% for aged A. mellifera honey (from Trinidad) to 32.4% for F. nigra honey (from Tobago). The MICs (2 to 16%) and MBCs (2 to 32%) of stingless bee honeys were lower than that of stinging bee and artificial honeys (16 to > 32%). Stingless bee honeys also exhibited a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms with higher phenol equivalence values (4.5 to 28.6%) than the A. mellifera honeys (0 to 3.4%) against the isolates tested. M. favosa honey of Tobago displayed the greatest antimicrobial activity as indicated by the high phenol equivalence and low MIC and MBC values. CONCLUSIONS: Stingless bee honeys from Tobago showed the greatest antimicrobial activity when compared to the other honeys used in this study. M. favosa honey of Tobago showed the most potential for use as medicinal honey.
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spelling pubmed-70769722020-03-19 Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago Brown, Elijah O’Brien, Michel Georges, Karla Suepaul, Sharianne BMC Complement Med Ther Research Article BACKGROUND: Honey is a versatile and complex substance consisting of bioactive chemicals which vary according to many bee and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to assess the physical and antimicrobial properties of five honey samples obtained from three species of bees; two stingless bees, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa and one stinging bee, Apis mellifera (fresh and aged honey). Samples were acquired from apiaries across Trinidad and Tobago. An artificial honey, made from sugar, was also used for comparison. METHODS: Physical properties such as appearance, pH, moisture content, sugar content and specific gravity were determined. Antimicrobial activity was assessed utilizing the agar diffusion assay and comparison to a phenol equivalence. The broth microdilution test was performed to determine the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and the minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBCs) of the five honey samples against four common pathogens, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pyogenes and Haemophilus influenzae. RESULTS: All honey samples were acidic, with pH values ranging from 2.88 (M. favosa of Tobago) to 3.91 (fresh A. mellifera). Sugar content ranged from 66.0 to 81.6% with the highest values detected in stinging bee honeys of the A. mellifera (81.6 and 80.5°Bx). Moisture content ranged from 16.9% for aged A. mellifera honey (from Trinidad) to 32.4% for F. nigra honey (from Tobago). The MICs (2 to 16%) and MBCs (2 to 32%) of stingless bee honeys were lower than that of stinging bee and artificial honeys (16 to > 32%). Stingless bee honeys also exhibited a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms with higher phenol equivalence values (4.5 to 28.6%) than the A. mellifera honeys (0 to 3.4%) against the isolates tested. M. favosa honey of Tobago displayed the greatest antimicrobial activity as indicated by the high phenol equivalence and low MIC and MBC values. CONCLUSIONS: Stingless bee honeys from Tobago showed the greatest antimicrobial activity when compared to the other honeys used in this study. M. favosa honey of Tobago showed the most potential for use as medicinal honey. BioMed Central 2020-03-17 /pmc/articles/PMC7076972/ /pubmed/32178659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-020-2829-5 Text en © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Brown, Elijah
O’Brien, Michel
Georges, Karla
Suepaul, Sharianne
Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago
title Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago
title_full Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago
title_fullStr Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago
title_full_unstemmed Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago
title_short Physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of Apis mellifera, Frieseomelitta nigra and Melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in Trinidad and Tobago
title_sort physical characteristics and antimicrobial properties of apis mellifera, frieseomelitta nigra and melipona favosa bee honeys from apiaries in trinidad and tobago
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7076972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32178659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-020-2829-5
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