Monitoring of Antimicrobial Effects and Effect Mechanism of Honey Samples in and around Eskişehir, Turkey

Abstract

Agar well and agar dilution methods were used to determine antimicrobial activity of 41 honey samples collected from different localities of Eskisehir province, Turkey. Totally ten microorganisms, Gram positive and negative bacteria, yeasts and moulds, were used as test microorganisms.  And then in order to determine the effect mechanisms of antimicrobial activities of the honey samples which were chosen osmotic effect, catalase test and acidity tests were applied and chemical ingredients analysis was done. In this phase the most sensitive microorganisms to osmotic stress and hydrogen peroxide are M. luteus and C.albicans and the most resistant bacteria is determined as P.aeroginosa. According to this the samples whose activities were determined when treated with catalase it was observed that their antimicrobial activities reduced to a large extent. In this study, it was revealed that hydrogen peroxide is one of the important factors of antimicrobial activity of honey.