Abstract:
The study was conducted with the objectives of isolating and identifying of common
pathogenic bacterial species fromdigestive tracts of honey bees (Apis mellifera) and
determine their antibiotic susceptibility patterns in Kurfa Chale district. A cross sectional
type study wasemployed to achieve the objectives. A total 40 pooled samples of live adult
honey bee were collected. Summary of descriptive statistics such as frequency and
percentages were used to describe the occurrence of bacterial pathogens. The proportion of
different bacteria found in the gut were analyzed for the association with study variables by
Pearson Chi-square test. P-value less than 0.05 was considered as significant. Out of 40
samples investigated 30 were positive and 10 were negative.From 30 positive sample 28
were targeted bacterial species and the remaining 2 were gram positive bacteria. The
overall occurrence of K. pneumonia, E.coli and Serratia marcescenin bee samples were 8
(20%), 7 (17.5%) and 13 (32.5%), respectively. The occurrence of isolated bacterial
species was various in different study area.The frequency according to kebele were 9 (
69.2%),9 (69.2%),10(71.4%) for Arele, Jiru belina and Hula jeneta respectively. Regarding
to occurrence in hive types, the frequency of bacterial species identified in studied types of
hives was 19 ( 73.1%) and 11 ( 78.6%) for traditional and modern hives respectively. Risk
factors such as study area and hive types did not show statistically significant variation on
the occurrence isolated bacterial species ( p> 0.05).The bacterial isolates were tested
against six commonly use antibiotics using disc diffusion method. Drugs tested were
Amoxacilin, ampicillin, tetracyclin,vancomicin, gentamicin and kanamacin. The
corresponding results for susceptibility pattern tests carried out indicate that all isolated bacterial
species were shown full resistant to ampicillin , amoxicillin ,tetracyclin and vancomicin and in
contrast, they indicated greater susceptibility to gentamicin and kanamycin.The present finding
used gram stain, morphology and biochemical test to isolate and identify pathogenic bacterial
species. Further investigation and experiment will be needed for exact decision regarding
isolation and identification of pathogenic bacteria from digestive tracts of honey bee.
