Honey bees and the benefits of honey, pollen, and propolis

Nearly 100 food crops in North America depend on the honeybee for the majority of their pollination. These crops include apples, oranges, broccoli, blueberries, squash, and melons. This alone makes bees indispensable. But bees also provide three unique products that have been used for nutrition and healing for many centuries: honey, bee pollen, and propolis.

Propolis is probably the least well known of the three products. Bees make propolis from tree sap and use it to protect the hive from bacteria, viruses, and fungus. In humans, propolis has been shown to enhance the immune system and treat infections. In his Daily Dose e-letter, William Campbell Douglass, II, M.D., detailed a study in which bee propolis was tested against Zovirax (a cold sore medication) in treating 90 subjects with herpes. Over 10 days, herpes outbreaks were completely healed in 80 percent of the propolis group compared to just 4 percent in the Zovirax group.

Bees mix honey with pollen to create tiny bee pollen granules that are used to nourish young bees. But these granules are very good for nourishing humans as well. In fact, bee pollen contains more protein than beef, and is considered nature's most potent natural multivitamin. It also contains minerals, enzymes, flavonoids, and all eight essential amino acids. Healers have traditionally used bee pollen to improve vitality and endurance, prevent infectious diseases, and aid in recovery from illness.

And of course, there's honey. In addition to being a nutritious sweetener, raw honey - unfiltered and unpasteurized - is a natural antibiotic that has been shown to aid digestion, treat ulcers, and promote healing when applied directly to skin wounds. Here's what HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., had to say about honey in a previous e-Alert: "In the raw state (and the word 'raw' is vital here...'uncooked' does not qualify) honey contains enzymes and nutrients that can be very useful to the body. Unfortunately, heat destroys many of them, and commercial honey is heated to keep it from crystallizing inside processing machinery."

I suppose we could live without honey, propolis, and bee pollen if we had to. But there's no way our food supply could survive without the pollinating genius of the honeybee.