THE EFFICIENCY OF PROPOLIS AS ACARICIDE

Propolis is a dark yellow or brownish resinous mixture of several compounds; include the phenolic, flavones, coumarines, and many other phenolic compounds. Mites, especially Tetranycus urticae koch and the parasitic mites Varroa destructor Anderson and Trueman (Pasositic) are unique among arthropods in that it is resistant to a wide range of acaricides and insecticides. Therefore, propolis efficiency was tested as ethanol extract (polar), hexane extract (non-polar) against Eutetranychus africanus (Tucher) and nano-emulsion of propolis against Tetranychus urtica and V. destructor. The results showed that, at the LC50 and LC90 ethanol extract was more toxic to adult females of E. africanus than hexane extract. Adult females of T. urticae were susceptible to the nano-emulsion of propolis. The LC50 and The LC90 reached 4.10% and 41.12% to the nanoemulsion of propolis. The biological aspects of two species of mites (T. urticae and E. africanus) were more affected by the three forms of propolis. In the winter season, the efficiency percentage of nano-emulsion of propolis at 4% reached 100% compared to control. While, in the autumn season, the efficiency percentage reached 95.62% at the first spray and reached 94.85% through 15 days of the first spray compared to 54.16 in control experiment. Conclusively, from these results it be concluded that, propolis can be used as acaricides against plant mites, as well as against the Varroa colonies in honeybees in the form of nano-emulsion.