Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Effect of Western Ethiopian Propolis

Propolis or bee glue is commonly named as a natural resinous mixture produced by honeybees (Apis mellifera) from substances collected from parts of plants, buds, and exudate. The result of the ethyl acetate - methanol (3 : 2) volume by volume fraction yielded a total of two compounds namely betulinic acid and β-amyrin isolated from Bodji Dirmaji and Fincha'a district propolis, respectively. The crude ethanolic extract was portioned with the different solvent systems by increasing the polarities in the following order of hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol. Column chromatographic method on normal silica gel was used to isolate the compounds. The structures of the compounds were characterized using 1D NMR techniques. The study revealed that western Ethiopian propolis was rich in saponins, tannins, flavonoids, steroids, triterpenes, and glycosides. The antibacterial activity for the isolated compound (betulinic acid) showed the highest inhibition for S. aureus (11.2±1.6), E. coli (17.7±1.1), and A. niger (12.6±1.2) mm.