Phytochemical Composition and Pharmacological Efficacy Evaluation of Calamintha nepeta, Calamintha sylvatica, Lavandula austroapennina and Mentha piperita Essential Oils for the Control of Honeybee (Apis mellifera) Varroosis

Abstract

Varroa destructor is currently considered the parasite that causes the greatest damage and economic losses to honeybee farms. Its presence is often associated with that of viral and bacterial pathogens, which ultimately leads to colony collapse. Careful control of the parasitic load is therefore necessary to avoid the onset of these events. Although chemical treatments are often in easily and quickly administered formulations, in recent years, there have been increasingly frequent reports of the onset of drug resistance phenomena, which must lead to reconsidering their use. Furthermore, chemical compounds can easily accumulate in the food matrices of the hive, with possible risks for the final consumer. In such a condition, it is imperative to find alternative treatment solutions. Essential oils (EOs) prove to be promising candidates due to their good efficacy and good environmental biodegradability. In this study, the acaricidal efficacy of the EOs of Calamintha sylvatica Bromf., Calamintha nepeta Savi, Lavandula austroapennina N.G. Passal. Tundis & Upson and Mentha piperita L., extracted from botanical species belonging to the Lamiaceae family, was evaluated. The test chosen for the evaluation was residual toxicity by contact. The examined EOs were diluted in Acetone to a concentration of 2, 1 and 0.5 mg/mL. At the highest concentration, the EOs demonstrated an acaricidal activity equal to 52% for C. nepeta, 60% for C. sylvatica, 80% for L. austroapennina and 68% for M. piperita. Of the EOs tested, therefore, Lavender proves to be a good candidate for subsequent evaluations in semi-field and field studies.

¿Cuál es el rol de los fitobióticos en la producción animal?: Beneficios, biodisponibilidad, desafíos actuales y futuros

“…Conocidos también como fitoquímos o fitogénicos, son sustancias complejas de compuestos bioactivos (Bava et al, 2024;Miranda et al, 2021) que derivadas de cualquier parte de las plantas, estas pueden ser en polvo, aceite esencial o extractos (Caicedo et al, 2022), estos compuestos bioactivos son principalmente metabolitos secundarios o especializados (Gara et al, 2018), como muestra la Figura 1 los metabolitos secundarios o especializados se dividen en 3 grupos como terpenoides, compuestos fenólicos, glicósidos y alcaloides, y estos se dividen varias subcategorías (Gara et al, 2018;Bhattacharya Sujata & Puri, 2018). Los compuestos bioactivos son generados mediante rutas biosintéticas y metabólicas de la planta en respuesta a la interacción con su medio (Deminicis et al, 2021).…”