Microbiological quality and antibacterial activity of honey produced by Melipona beecheii in Yucatan, Mexico

Objective. To analyze the microbiological quality and antibacterial activity in 43 samples of honey produced by Melipona beecheii, extracted during the years 2020 and 2021 in the harvest (January to May) and post-harvest (June to October) seasons from meliponaries located in the low deciduous forest of southeast of Mexico. Materials and methods. Microbiological quality was determined by evaluating the content of total aerobic mesophiles, coliforms, molds, yeasts, and spore-forming anaerobes. For antibacterial activity, the agar well diffusion assay was used using 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80% honey concentrations. Results. The presence of aerobic mesophiles (83.7% of the samples), coliforms (4.6%), molds (20.9%) and yeasts (39.5%) was observed, with a maximum of 4.5x102, 2.5x10, 9.5x10 and 3.2x103 CFU/g, respectively. The presence of sporulated forms of sulfite-reducing clostridia was not observed in any sample. With respect to the antibacterial activity, the highest zones of inhibition were recorded against Staphylococcus aureus at a honey concentration of 80 and 40%, contrary to what was observed with Salmonella var. Typhimurium, Pseudomonas aureginosa and Escherichia coli, where the interference in bacterial growth was not so evident. Conclusions. However, the growth of mesophiles and yeasts in most of the samples showed antibacterial activity against the pathogens mentioned above, which can be attributed to the interactions between microbiome, plants, bees and physicochemical characteristics of honey.