Quality Survey of Iranian honey bee venom in areas with different vegetation

Bee venom is widely used in the field of medicine and pharmaceuticals. Several factors are effective in the amount and compounds of venom. So far, no research has been done on the amount of Iranian bee venom compounds. The aim of this study was investigation of the amount of three important peptide compounds (melitin, phospholipaseA2 and apamin) in Iranian honeybee venom. Venom samples were collected from four apiaries located in areas with different (predominant) vegetation. The areas had dominant vegetation of sunflower, various foothills plants, corn and alfalfa. The apiaries were located in that areas for at least two months. Collection of venom was carried out by a standard venom collector device. Samples were sent to the laboratory to measure the three intended peptides. The data were analyzed in a completely randomized design with 4 treatments and 3 replications. The average amount of mellitin, phospholipase A2 and apamin were 40.25 ± 8.37%, 11.66 ± 2.77 and 2.31 ± 0.55%, respectively. The amount of mellitin in second treatment was estimated 52.04%, which was significantly higher than the others. This treatment had the highest amount of phospholipase A2 and apamin too, but this superiority was not statistically significant. It seems that this can be related to the varied and special vegetation in this treatment. This study was done for first time in Iran and it is necessary to conduct more research. If the results are confirmed, Mountainous areas can be introduced as the best areas to produce bee venom with higher quality.