Quantitative Assessment of Total Aerobic Mesophiles in Apitoxin, Royal Jelly, Propolis, Honey, and Bee Pollen-Based Products Through an Automated Growth-Based System

Bee-derived products such as apitoxin, royal jelly, propolis, bee pollen, and honey are increasingly being used as part of cosmetic products, because all of them contain a large number of bioactive compounds with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and regenerative properties, which enable them to be used for therapeutic purposes. The aim of this investigation was to assess the performance of an automated growth-based system in order to make a quantitative examination of the total of aerobic mesophiles in bee-derived personal care products using NF-TVC vials that contain a nutrient-based medium with dextrose as the carbon source. According to USP general chapter , pivotal validation criteria such as linearity, equivalence of results, operative range, precision, accuracy, ruggedness, limit of quantification, and limit of detection have demonstrated that the automated system can be used for reliable mesophile quantitative assessment. Moreover, the actual research demonstrated that polysorbates efficiently block the anti-microbiological potential of bioactive compounds such as phenols, flavonoids, enzymes, peptides, and fatty acids, which naturally occur in apitoxin, royal jelly, propolis, bee pollen, and honey, allowing an efficient microorganism recovery from the bee-made products tested. Therefore, this groundbreaking technology could be applied efficiently within the cosmetic industry to assess the total of aerobic mesophiles in bee-derived products such as capillary treatments, toothpaste, and anti-aging cream, affording several benefits associated with faster product release into the market.