Isolation and identification of lactic acid producing bacteria from Flora honey bee in the southern regions of the country

Probiotic bacteria are becoming increasingly important in the content of human nutrition. Nowadays, probiotics are being increasingly promoted worldwide, with suggestions that probiotics can play an important role in immunological, digestive, and respiratory functions and could have a significant effect in alleviating infectious disease. Lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria are the most common types of microbes used as probiotics. Honey and bee products have been used in healing for centuries. Unfortunately, information about probiotics bacteria in local honeybee is not currently available and scant. Thus, the aim of this study was to isolate and identify the predominant Lactobacillus as probiotic from the honey stomach of Apis florea in the Iran. Samples of honeybee were collected from Apis florea colonies from Iran. Samples were preserved in fridge till test starts. Lactobacillus bacteria are isolated from honey stomach using MRS broth and agar medium. The isolates were Gram-stained and tested for Catalase reaction. Then DNA extracted of bacterial colonies amplified with PCR using lactobacilli primers. After sequencing, all bacterial gene identified by using Blast software.DNA from all lactobacillus in the honey were exhibited to be catalase negative, gram positive and the other with catalase positive and gram negative were eliminated.6 new strain/ species of Lactobacillus bacteria were identified from honey stomach in different colonies of A. florea and almost 28.4% of them identified as new species and candidate to register in NCBI.Most of them are Lactobacillus kunkeei. Lactobacillus in the honey stomach may have the potential to promote human performance and health.