MITICIDAL ACTIVITY OF CLOVE ESSENTIAL OIL AND ITS MAJOR COMPOUND AS POTENTIAL CONTROL AGAINST Varroa jacobsoni MITES IN HONEY BEE.

The varroa mite, Varroa jacobsoni is the most serious ectoparasitic pest affecting
honeybee Apis mellifera L. on world wide basis and causes damage to the apiaries.
Control with synthetic acaricides has been used extensively for varroa control in many
different parts of the world but causes some problems such as residues in hive
products and acaricide resistant mites. Thus essential oils offer an attractive
alternative to synthetic acaricides for the control of varroa. They are generally
inexpensive and most pose few health risks. In the present study essential oil of dried
clove buds was extracted by steam distillation and analysed by Gas Chromatography-
Mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) then investigated the activity against honey bee parasite
Varroa jacobsoni by two methods of application spraying and evaporating trails in field
tests after lab bioassay with essential oil and its major compound eugenol. Essential
oil yield was 12.7 ± 0.07g/100g from dried clove buds sample. Thiry four components
were identified by GC-MS and the major constituent was eugenol (cis-eugenol
18.02% and trans-eugenol 3.86%). The other main compounds were chavicol
(6.87%), a-pinene (5.77%), junipene (5.46%), fenchone (4.94%), anethole (4.76%),
limonene (4.65%) ~-caryophyllene (4.16%) and carvone (3.99%). Additions to 12
compounds were recorded as minor constituents and 13 compounds as trace
constituents (less than 1 %).The results of biological experiments on varroa mites
indicated that lab bioassay average mortality in the controls were ranged between
10.2 and 21. Average mortality in the eugenol treatments were ranged from 11.4 to
23.6 but in treatments of whole essential oil ranged from 19.20 to 70.50. In field
experiments essential oil has significant differed from control in its effect as a miticide
and evaporating technique is more effective on varroa mites comparing with spraying
technique. The average mortality in mites was 50.38 and 71.42 for evaporation
method and 12.12 and 20.1 for spraying method compared with control. Also the
honey, sensory tests didn't give any evidence of clove after essential oil application.