Abstract
Honey is a natural food with pharmacological properties. The present study was focused on the use of essential oils in the supplementary feeding of bee families for three weeks (spring). The purpose was to monitor the effect of essential oils (basil, thyme, juniper, cloves, mint, cinnamon, oregano, rosemary) on the chemical components of the resulting honey. The honey sampling period was carried out before the administration of essential oils in the supplementary feed of the bee families, after the administration of essential oils in the bee feed, respectively, after the first harvest (rapeseed). The honey samples were subjected to chemical analysis to determine humidity, impurities, ash, pH, acidity, total phenolic content (TPC) and flavonoid content (FC), reducing sugar content and antioxidant activity. In addition, the antimicrobial activity against nine strains was tested. We found out that all the essential oils used had a positive effect on the chemical composition of honey, especially the essential oil of oregano, mint, thyme, cinnamon. Experimental variants in which juniper and clove essential oil were introduced reduced the acidity of honey by 28.12% and 35.48%, respectively. Ash content varies between 0.23% and 0.46%, impurities content between 4.11% and 9.11%, while the values for pH were between 3.42 and 4.03. As for the TPC, they have increased considerably in all experimental variants to which essential oil has been added, compared to the batch fed only with sugar syrup, the highest value being recorded for the sample treated with cinnamon after the third harvest (163.94 mg/100 g). The FC values vary between 8.41–44.36 mg/100 g, depending of the treatment applied and the period of harvesting. Regarding the antimicrobial activity, the results highlighted that the essential oils present in the diet of bees produced honey with antimicrobial effect increased after two weeks after administration.
Highlights
Honey has been used since ancient times and its main use was to heal burns and wounds [1,2]
Honey samples were collected from each experimental variant at the beginning of the experiment (Control sample), after 7 days of Essential oils (EOs) administration (Harvest I), at 20 days of administration of sugar syrup with essential oils (Harvest II) and after the first harvest of production (Harvest III) in 30 May 2021 according to Table 2
Our results showed that S. flexneri, S. typhimurium and E. coli proved to be one of the most susceptible strains at the activity of samples taken during Harvest I
Summary
Honey has been used since ancient times and its main use was to heal burns and wounds [1,2]. Honey has successively undergone a series of physicochemical investigations in which its anti-inflammatory and healing properties were associated with the antioxidant activity and antimicrobial effect [3,4,5]. The protection factor against wounds or burns is the antimicrobial activity caused mainly by the amount of sugar contained in honey, low water content, low pH level, molecules that inhibit the growth of bacteria and the content of honey in other compounds [6,7,8,9]. In 2017, the World Health Organization reported a number of bacteria with considerable resistance to the existing drugs, which indicates a high degree of emergency in the discovery of new antibiotics [11,12].
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