Chemical, Cytotoxic, and Anti-Inflammatory Assessment of Honey Bee Venom from Apis mellifera intermissa

The venom from Apis mellifera intermissa, the main honey bee prevailing in Morocco, has been scarcely studied, despite its known potential for pharmacological applications. In the present work, we investigated the composition, the anti-inflammatory activity, and the venom’s cytotoxic properties from fifteen honey bee venom (HBV) samples collected in three regions: northeast, central, and southern Morocco. The chemical assessment of honey bee venom was performed using LC-DAD/ESI/MSn, NIR spectroscopy and AAS spectroscopy. The antiproliferative effect was evaluated using human tumor cell lines, including breast adenocarcinoma, non-small cell lung carcinoma, cervical carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and malignant melanoma. Likewise, we assessed the anti-inflammatory activity using the murine macrophage cell line. The study provides information on the honey bee venom subspecies’ main components, such as melittin, apamin, and phospholipase A2, with compositional variation depending on the region of collection. Contents of toxic elements such as cadmium, chromium, and plumb were detected at a concentration below 5 ppm, which can be regarded as safe for pharmaceutical use. The data presented contribute to the first study in HBV from Apis mellifera intermissa and highlight the remarkable antiproliferative and anti-inflammatory effects of HBV, suggesting it to be a candidate natural medicine to explore.

Bioactivité de quelques huiles essentielles par l’évaluation de l’effet acaricide vis-à-vis de la varroase et incidence sur la qualité du miel

Le parasite Varroa destructor de l’abeille domestique Apis mellifera intermissa est actuellement considéré comme la plus grande menace pour cet insecte et responsable d’une partie importante des mortalités des colonies d’abeilles qu’il infeste. Pour cela, des traitements « biologiques » se sont avérés très efficaces, et leurs résidus présentent moins de nocivité pour la santé de l’être humain. Les huiles essentielles de Rosmarinus officinalis (lot 1), Laurus nobilis (lot 2) et Mentha viridis (lot 3) extraites par hydrodistillation ont été étudiées sur Varroa destructor. Puis, une analyse des miels a été initiée pour déterminer la présence des huiles utilisées. Il ressort des résultats obtenus qu’aucun d’entre eux n’a donné pleinement 100 % d’efficacité à cause de la présence du couvain, mais il ressort clairement que les trois huiles essentielles ont manifesté des résultats appréciables et semblent avoir grandement diminué le taux d’infestation final pour atteindre 0,30 % pour le romarin, 0,6 % pour le laurier et 0,29 % pour la menthe, ce qui n’est pas négligeable. Le lot témoin (lot 4), non traité, a eu une mortalité naturelle de varroa assez importante, le taux d’infestation est toujours élevé, il est de 22,1 % pendant la durée des traitements. Les résultats obtenus pour l’analyse des lipides nous ont permis de constater que nos miels répondent aux normes. Les teneurs en lipides sont très faibles, et les abeilles n’ont pas utilisé l’huile de traitement dans l’élaboration du miel. À cet effet, nos analyses ont confirmé l’absence d’huile essentielle dans ce produit de la ruche.

Procruste analysis of forewing shape in two endemic honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera intermissa and A. m. sahariensis from the Northwest of Algeria

Abed F, Bachir-Bouiadjra B, Dahloum L, Yakubu A, Haddad A, Homrani A. 2021. Procruste analysis of forewing shape in two endemic honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera intermissa and A. m. sahariensis from the Northwest of Algeria. Biodiversitas 22: 154-164. Honey bees play an important role as pollinators of many crops. Thus they are collectively considered as a veritable economic source. The present study was undertaken to describe variation in the right forewing geometry in two Algerian honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera intermissa and Apis mellifera sahariensis using landmark-based geometric morphometrics. A total of 1286 honeybees were sampled from 12 provinces in the northwest of Algeria. The forewing geometry was evaluated using 20 homologous landmarks by applying Procrustes superimposition analysis. The top four principal components accounted for only 41.1% of wing shape variation between the two subspecies. There was a significant difference in wing shape between the two subspecies (Mahalanobis distance = 1.0626 ; P<0.001), whereas their wing size seemed similar (P>0.05). Regarding the allometric effect, the percentage of variation in wing shape explained by size changes was relatively small, with 1.28% and 4.37% for A. m. intermissa and A.m sahariensis, respectively. The cross-validation procedure correctly classified 68.3% of specimens into their original groups. PERMANOVA test revealed significant differences in the right forewing shape among all geographic areas studied (P<0.001). The results clearly showed that the landmark-based geometric approach applied to forewings venation is a powerful and reliable tool in the discrimination of native honey bee subspecies and should be considered in local honey bee biodiversity improvement and conservation initiatives.

Anti Ulcerogenic and Cytoprotective Effects of Saharian (Sidr) Honey from Algeria

Aim and Objective: This study aimed at investigating the gastro-protective effects of Algerian Sahara (Sidr) honey from Apis mellifera intermissa against HCl/Ethanol-induced gastric ulcers in rats Material and Methods: Total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds were determined. Than, Three groups of rats (control, HCl/ Ethanol induced ulcer, and orally administered honey) were used for the determination of gastro protective effect of Sidr honey. Results: Total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, and DPPH activity of honey sample was determined as 47.35±3.35 mg GAE/ 100 g, 2.13±0.17 mg QE/ 100 g, and 229.24±0.02 mg/mL, respectively. Oral pretreatment of rats with honey (1.2 g/Kg body weight orally at interval of 2 days) protected gastric mucosa against HCl/Ethanol induced damage by decreasing ulcer score, the volume and acidity of gastric juice and increasing pH. Conclusion: These results were confirmed by the histological assessment which demonstrated a significant gastro protective activity of Saharian (Sidr) honey against HCl/Ethanol-induced stomach ulcer. Plasma tumor necrosis factor-!, IL-6 and PGE2were also measured. Sahara honeys significantly decreased the plasma TNF-!, PGE2, and IL-6 concentrations.

STUDY OF MELLIFEROUS PLANTS VISITED BY THE WORKER HONEYBEE, APIS MELLIFERA INTERMISSA IN BOUMERDES, ALGERIA

This work allows to establish a list of melliferous plants visited by the worker bee, Apis mellifera intermissa in Boumerdes through melissopalynological analysis. Eight samples of honey were collected in summer from different regions of Boumerdes province in Algeria: Mizrana (H1), Tizéruine (H2), Tagdempt (H3), Sherraba (H4), Baghlia (H5), Boudouaou (H6), Sidi Daoud (H7) and Si Mustapha (H8). For the analysis, we adopted the classical method of Louveaux et al., (1970). The results obtained showed that the melissopalynological analysis indicated the pollen grains of Eucalyptus were numerous as more than 45% of the pollen in six (6) of the eight samples of Boumerdes (H1, H2, H3, H4, H7 and H8). The pollen of Hedysarum coronarium was dominant in the sample H5 (67.60%). In seven samples honey recognized multifloral by beekeepers, Eucalyptus and Citrus taxa were respectively super represented and underrepresented in the honey H7 (87.46%) and H6 (19.80%). Thus, the number of taxa listed in the honeys studied varies from 14 to 19. The total number of pollen grains counted for the 8 samples varied from 646 to 3580.

DIFFERENCE IN CUTICLE COMPONENT AND IMMUNOCOMPETENCE IN NURSE AND FORAGER WORKER HONEYBEE (APIS MELLIFERA L)

The aim of this work is to study the difference of physiology between the workerbee nurse and forager (Apis mellifera intermissa). The chosen physiologicalcharacteristics were the component of the cuticle (protein-chitin content) and themeasure of the efficiency of immune system (the total number of haemocytes(THC), the normal haemocytes and the relative mass of fat body). The THC iswidely used as an indicator of cellular immunocompetence of insects. The normalhaemocytes, also referred to immunocytes, indicate the integrity of cellularimmune system. The fat body is an indirect measurement of induced humoralimmunocompetence. The THC and the normal haemocytes were determined by themethod described by Amdam et al., (2004). For the estimation of the cuticularabdominal protein-chitin content, the method described by Berghiche et al., (2007)was employed. The relative mass of fat body was determined using an etherextraction method according to Doums et al., (2002) and Wilson-Rich et al.,(2008).The results show that a considerable percentage of a cuticular protein and adecrease of chitin was observed in nurse compared to forager. The older beesexhibited a strong reduction in the immun parameters.