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Nutritional value of four proteinaceous diets and their physiological effects on honey bee workers were evaluated under laboratory conditions. The tested diets were as follows: diet 1 – date (Phoenix dactylifera L.) syrup, skimmed milk powder and dried brewer's yeast, diet 2 – Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.), Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) powders and dried brewer's yeast, diet 3 – chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) flour, wheat germ and dried brewer's yeast and diet 4 - soybean meal, skimmed milk powder and dried brewer's yeast, beside a control group (bee bread). Caged Carniolan honey bee workers were used in the experiments. The consumption rate, workers longevity, development degree of hypopharyngeal glands (HPG), and weight of rectal contents were determined. The greatest consumption rate was recorded for the control group while the lowest one was recorded for diet 4. Feeding bees on diet 3 gave the longest longevity (LT50= 27.0 days) among the tested diets and as a second rank after bees in the control group (LT50 = 29.0 days) while diet 4 showed the lowest longevity (LT50 =20.5 days). The highest HPG development degree (3.78) was recorded for 9 days old bees in the control group, followed by diet 3 (3.24) while the lowest degree (2.14) was to diet 4. The weight of rectal contents of honey bee workers was 13.43, 16.03 and 16.12 mg/bee/3 days for diet 3, diet 1 and diet 2, respectively, suggesting the suitability of these diets to bees. In light of this study, diet 3 and 2 have the best physiological effects for bees with good nutritional values.

Background: Few studies showed that Dracaena cinnabari resin, collected from Soqotra Island, Yemen, has antimicrobial activity. This study is the first to investigate antimicrobial activity of the resin on both antibiotic multi-resistant human pathogens and on poly-microbial culture. Material and Methods: Antimicrobial activity of ethanolic extract of Dracaena cinnabari resin from Soqotra Island on multidrug resistant Gram-positive and Gram-negative human ATCC standard pathogens and Ascosphaera apis, the causal organism of chalkbrood disease of honeybee was studied using the agar disc diffusion method. The minimal inhibitory concentration of extracts was carried out by the broth micro dilution method. Results: Ethanolic extract of Dracaena cinnabari resin showed a considerable antimicrobial activity against all the pathogens tested. The zone of inhibition were between 4.9-11.5 mm. The most sensitive microbe was Staphylococcus aureus and least sensitive was Aspergillus nidulans. The minimal inhibitory concentration of the extract against Escherichia. coli ATCC 10402, Klebsiella pneumonia ATCC 10031, and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 29212 was 1.25 µg/mL (w/v) and for the other pathogens (Candida albicans ATCC 10231, Salmonella typhimurum ATCC 3311 and Pseudomonos aeruginosa ATCC 2785) was 2.5 µg/mL (w/v). Conclusion: Ethanolic extract of Dracaena cinnabari resin has a considerable antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative human pathogens and fungi. This extract might possess a role in the management of microbial infections in human and honeybee disease.

Background The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is the major devastating insect pest of beekeeping industry all over the world; however their larvae were valuable to be the most favorable alternative invertebrate model. For this purpose, new-hatched larvae were reared on five different nutritional diets based on: old wax-comb (natural food); wheat flour diet (Triticum aestivum L.); soybean diet (Glycine max); wheat germ diet; and date syrup diet (Phoenix dactylifera L.) till reaching the fully grown 6th instars to evaluate their fitness and hemocytic responses. Results Fully grown larvae from soybean diet had the highest rates of fresh (280 mg) and dry weights (104 mg), water contents (175.6 mg), carbohydrates (1.97%), total hemocyte count (THC) (4746/mm3), total soluble solid (TSS) (21.7%), hemolymph protein concentration (HPC) (1662.5 mg/100 ml), and hemolymph content (density 3.82 mg/µl and volume 70.35 µl/larva), followed by wheat germ diet in comparable to the natural food. All suggested diets considered as rich protein-materials; recording high protein rates on their larvae (39.51–41.87%), with only the exception of old wax-comb had the lowest one (36.63%). Moreover, five types of hemocytes were classified in the larval hemolymph as (prohemocytes (PR), plasmatocytes (PL), granulocytes (GR), oenocytoids (OE) and spherulocytes (SP)), but with different rates related to different diets. Regardless the rearing diets, PR type was the most frequently recorded cell type (73.31%) in hemolymph, followed by PL (8.37%), and the lowest one was OE cells (5.82%). Conclusions The suggested diets of soybean and wheat germ recorded the best results than the other diets used almost, and could be recommended as standard diets to mass-produce healthy and high-quality G. mellonella for in vivo experimentation and/or microbiological studies.

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