Antibacterial activity of Branded Honey preparations (sold in Thika town) on selected priority bacterial strains

Abstract

Honey is defined as a sweet viscous liquid produced by honey bees from the nectar of plants. Its antimicrobial properties have been used back in years as food and for medicinal purpose and it is still used nowadays. This study was carried out to determine antimicrobial activity of branded honey samples sold in Thika town. The potential of branded honey to be used as antibacterial agents was established by assessing its activity against three different bacterial strains which are gram positive Bacillus subtilis, gram negative Acinetobacter baumannii and Salmonella enteritidis. The antibacterial laboratory tests were carried out using disc diffusion method using culture media prepared from Mueller- Hinton agar. Antibacterial activity was statistically presented as the mean ± Standard error of the mean of zones of inhibition. Antibiotic resistance of bacteria has been a global challenge over many years which is the burden of world economy in both underdeveloped and developed countries. This initiated the need for rescue by using natural products resources like plants, herbs, animal, and their products which is a safer, better, accessible and effective way to overcome the AMR problem among different bacterial strains. In this study the in vitro antibacterial activity of branded honey was tested against Acinetobacter baumannii, Bacillus subtillis, and Salmonella enteritidis. This involved a process of aseptically laying the cylindrical paper disc (5mm) on to the already inoculated Muller Hilton agar with specific microorganism and then directly pipetting 4 dilutions of the different concentrations of the branded honey preparation on to the disc in 100, 75, 50, 25 proportions. The disc was allowed to dry prior to upside down incubation at 37oc for 24 hours after which the inhibition zones were recorded, all branded honey samples showed mild antibacterial activity against both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria and the antibacterial activity of the branded honey samples.