Owing to high incidence of multiple resistances of pathogenic bacteria to conventional antibiotics, there is need to explore natural effective alternatives to conventional antibiotics for the treatment of some bacterial infections. Honey has been used as a natural remedy for the treatment of infected wounds since antiquity. The antibacterial activity of honey depends on both its phytochemical and peroxide constituents . The aim of this study is to evaluate non-peroxide antibacterial activity of selected Nigeria honey against pathogenic bacteria isolated from wound infections. Quantitative agar well diffusion assay technique was employed to determine the initial antibacterial activity of five non-peroxide honey samples while spectrophotometric assay was used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration of the honey samples. All the five types of non-peroxide honey exhibited varying degrees of antibacterial activity against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria isolated from infected wounds. The mean zones of inhibition ranged from 28.12 ±2.11 mm to 36.28 ±2.51 mm. All the test organisms exhibited higher susceptibility to all the honey samples than to standard antibiotic tetracycline. However, no statistically significant difference (p>0.05) was observed among the zones of inhibition exhibited by the honey types.

Keywords: Honey, bacterial resistance, antibacterial activity, susceptibility, non-peroxide.