Microbiota of Honeybees, <I>Apis mellifera Adansonii </I>(Hymenoptera: Apidae) from Selected Ecozones, South West Nigeria.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Honeybees explore their environment in search of nectar and pollens including water whose sources are contaminated by variety of microbes. This has both negative and positive economic implications on health status of honeybees, the consumers of the products including the quality of the products. Hence, the study was designed to investigate the effect of geographical locations on the occurrence and diversity of microbiota on the external integument and the digestive gut of adult worker honeybees, Apis mellifera adansonii.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The honeybee samples were sourced from Ondo, Ogun, Oyo and Osun of South West Nigeria. The samples were subjected to microbiological analyses using standard techniques. Two-ways ANOVA was used for statistical test of the data.

RESULTS: The microbiota of the studied samples includes Corynebacterium kutsceri, Corynebacterium xerosis, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus fermentum, Micrococcus luteus, Micrococcus varians and Staphylococcus aureus which were gram-positive bacteria, while gram-negative bacteria include Aeromonas veronii, Citrobacter diversus, Citrobacter freundii, Klebsiella oxytoca, Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Fungi isolates include Aspergillus parasiticus, Aspergilus flavus, Aspergilus fumigatus, Aspergilus niger and Rhizopus stolonifer. Most microbiota were not cosmopolitan across selected ecozones of south west, Nigeria except for Aspergillus fumigatus. The number of identified species of microbiota either in the digestive guts or on the external integument of worker honeybees from selected ecozones varies from one ecozone to another. There was significant species diversity of microbiota on external integument than in digestive guts of adult workers of A. mellifera adansonii from selected ecozones in South West, Nigeria.

CONCLUSION: The study showed that both the external integument and the digestive guts of A. mellifera adansonii exhibited variety of microbial flora providing research exploration opportunity for probable microbes of economic and geographical importance.