Determination of antimicrobial activities of different flower honeys

Abstract

Honey is highly nutritious, and a functional food rich in bioactive components. The biological activity of honey differs according to its botanical origin, geographic properties, and climate characteristics. Therefore, it is necessary to handle the monofloral and multifloral honey produced in our country in a comprehensive manner. Adopting the understanding of displacement of natural preservatives with synthetic ones enables the exploration of alternative uses of honey. For this purpose, in our study, the antimicrobial activity of lavender, lemon, thyme and multifloral honey were determined and compared with each other. According to the results obtained, it was found that multifloral honey has higher antimicrobial activity than monofloral honey, but lemon honey which is one of the monofloral honey types, shows strong inhibition against microorganisms tested, and thyme honey had the weakest antibacterial effect. Antimicrobial activity (except for Bacillus cereus DSM 4312) was found to be strongest against bacterial then yeast and then mold in all honey varieties. In addition, we found that that the most resistant bacteria statistically was B. cereus DSM 4312, while the most sensitive bacteria was Klebsiella pneumoniae ATCC 700603 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 35032.