Effects of feeding different levels of acetic acid, probiotic, Oxytetracycline and Neomycin on populations of Coliform and Lactobacillus in pupae of honey bee (ApismelliferaL)

Environmental factors and diet are of the most important factors that affect the microbial population of the gastrointestinal tract and there are many antimicrobial systems in honey bees and their foods naturally. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of dietary acetic acid and concentrated mixture of probiotic and antibiotics of oxytetracycline and neomycin on population coliform bacteria and lactobacilli changes in honey bee pupae. The experimental treatments consisted of different levels of acetic acid 5 % (10, 20 and 30 g/l), protexin probiotic, Oxytetracycline 20 % and Neomycin 20 % antibiotics with levels of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 g/l and sugar syrup 50 % and honey syrup 50 % was performed in a completely randomized design with four replications for 20 days. After feeding the experimental groups, one gram of 18 day old worker bee's pupae samples of each colony was poured into 9 ml of physiological solution. After preparing different dilutions, each sample was inoculated on MRS agar and MacConkey agar medium. Lactobacillus and coliform colonies were counted after finishing incubation period. The results showed that the highest population of coliform bacteria treated with sugar syrup (2.58 log CFU/g) and the lowest in treatments 0.2 and 0.3 g Neomycin, Oxytetracycline, and probiotic that were equal to zero (P value <0.05). The highest population of Lactobacillus bacteria belonged to 0.2 g probiotic treatment (4.05 log CFU/g) and the lowest was for 0.2 and 0.3 g Neomycin treatment which was equal to zero (P value<0.05).Discussion and This study showed that the addition probiotic in sugar syrup for feeding larvae resulted in increasing population of Lactobacilli in the body of the bee pupae than the control groups.