BEE HONEY AND MEDICINAL PLANTS IMPACT IN LEARNING AND MEMORY OF HONEY BEE WORKER APIS MELLIFERA L.

This study has been conducted in the Faculty of Agriculture -University of Kufa.The main objective of the current study is to see the effect of some natural products (plant extracts and honey) which are commonly used in the folk medicine in Iraq for their impact on the memory.We tested Arabic gum, rosemary, coriander and different types of honey on the learning and memory of honey bees.The results of the current study showed that the natural products that have been used had an impact on the learning and memory of workers honey bees compared to 1M sucrose as a control.The highest rate of learning was from multiflower honey followed by the coriander extract, then Eucalyptus honey, where they reached 58.8, 57.6 and 56 % respectively, while it reached 51.2, 48.4,46.8% for the Arabic gum, desert honey and the aqueous extract of rosemary leaves respectively compared to 30% in control.The results also showed that the natural products had an impact on the nervous system of honey bee workers by strengthening their memory.The results gave better responsiveness 12 hours post treatment compared with their response after 24 hours.These products had an impact on the memory of honey bee workers, where it was found that the treatment consisted of Eucalyptus honey gave the highest percentage of memory with 68 % compared with the 18% for the control.The rest of the treatments which are composed of multiflower honey, coriander plant extract, desert honey, Arabic gum and rosemary, were as follows: 65,61,58,55 and 53% respectively.