The Effect of Propolis Concentrations on The Repellency of Culex quinquefasciatus

Propolis, otherwise known as bee glue, is a resinous substance that is collected by bees from different types of plants. It is used for producing many pharmaceuticals like cosmetics and ointments. However, little research exists on the potential for propolis to be used as an insecticide or insect repellent. The purpose of this study was to determine whether propolis could be used as an insect repellent against Culex quinquefasciatus, and whether different concentrations would affect its repellency. It was hypothesized that the greater concentration of propolis would result in the highest repellency against Culex quinquefasciatus, since studies testing the effects of propolis on other organisms tended to show that higher concentrations of propolis extracts resulted in high levels of narcotic effects and death of the organism. Approximately 30 mosquitoes were put into 4 separate containers for the experiment. One side of the tube contained a piece of filter paper treated with either 0%, 5%, 10%, or 15% propolis solutions, while the other side contained an untreated piece of filter paper. Every two minutes for one hour, the number of mosquitoes on each half of the container was counted and recorded. The results of a Chi-square test of independence with an α-value of 0.05 found that the difference between the data for each trial was significant, as p (<0.001) < α-value (0.05). Therefore, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the greater concentrations of propolis resulted in greater repellency against Culex quinquefasciatus.