Honey and bees products follow man through history. Honey sweetened the lives of people and at the same time was a preventive against many illnesses. Since then we have gathered many information about its creation, varieties, properties and ways of use. Nevertheless, not all of its secrets have been discovered. Articles on honey and bee products appear occasionally in magazines, newspapers and books, and some of them can be found here, but PAY ATTENTION – approach the information with a reserve – not all have been scientifically confirmed.
All bees products can be classified into two large groups: the products of animal and plant origin. Products of plant origin are: honey, pollen, propolis, gathered by a bee from flowers and stored in the beehive. Products of animal origin are: royal jelly, beeswax and bee venom, created by the bee in its own body. All these ingredients are essential to the bee, and without them the bee and the entire bee-hive could not survive.
Honey is a thick, sweet, syrupy substance and is the most basic of the honey-bee products. Bees produce honey by collecting pollen, mead, nectar and other sweet syrups from plants, which they enrich with substances from their own body and place into honeycombs, where this mass matures into honey. Honey was originally used as a sweetener and a nutritional additive, to be increasingly used later in pharmaceutics and medicine.
An important bee product is pollen, as well. Pollen is an essential ingredient to the life of every beehive. Without pollen, bees could not produce food for the embryo and the “mother”, which would lead to their extinction. While honey provides bees with fructose and glucose sugars, enzymes and mineral ingredients, pollen provides them with sufficient protein, fats, vitamins and minerals. Honey provides bees with the energy needed to collect pollen and nectar.
Propolis is a mixture of wax and glutinous substances, collected by the bees from the buds of perennial plants. Propolis is used by the bees to reinforce the honeycomb and to seal the gaps. It performs the role of disinfecting the wax cells and the entire beehive. Propolis contains easily volatile etheric oils possessing clearly marked antimicrobial effects. Beeswax is used by the bees to construct the honeycomb, where they afterwards lay their larvae and store food reserves. Since it is very dark in a beehive, bees use the honeycomb as a means of communication, utilizing its vibrations to communicate.
Bee venom is a product used by the bees as a means of defense against many aggressors desiring to take their riches. Its main field of application is in medicine.
Royal jelly, perhaps the most important bee product stimulates regular growth and development of an organism, adds the needed strength, activates metabolic processes in an organism, maintains a regular functioning of the endocrinal system. By using royal jelly, a normalization in the functioning of all systems and organism as a Withoutle is achieved.