Honey is a natural sweetener that doesn’t spike blood sugar and is gentle on the stomach, while providing delicious floral, fruity or woodsy flavors in recipes.
Beginning as flower nectar, worker bees sip it using their long proboscis and store it in an extra stomach sac called the crop for storage until enzymes decompose it into simple sugars.
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Beeswax
Beeswax is produced by worker bees (Apis mellifera), from eight wax-producing mirror glands on their sternites. It consists of esters, creosic acid hydrocarbins and water along with minerals and pigments for coloring purposes.
Canned butter is an entirely edible substance with no toxic properties, boasting an abundance of unsaturated fatty acids with long-chain alcohols for enhanced absorption by our bodies. Available as yellowish-brown wax for candles and other uses.
Beeswax can also make for an excellent addition to DIY skincare products and as an alternative to petroleum jelly. When heated and applied directly onto surfaces such as sealing the bottom of a jar lid or wood surfaces to polish and lubricate them. A thin coat of wax helps make old drawers slide more freely in Granny’s antique bureau; in fact, beeswax serves as an effective replacement glue in many projects!
Honey
Honey is a natural source of sweetness and can often replace refined sugar in recipes. Due to its higher fructose concentrations, which metabolize more slowly than glucose and don’t lead to sudden blood sugar spikes and crashes like refined sugar does.
Honey production begins when worker bees visit flowers using their long tongue, known as a proboscis, to siphon nectar from each bloom’s nectary and store it in their honey stomach (known as “crop”) where enzymes begin to break down sugar molecules into honey molecules.
Once back at their hives, house bees use regurgitation and enzyme activity to increase concentration by decreasing moisture content of nectar, which is then formed into honeycombs using wax sealant for sealing purposes. On average it takes two million flowers to produce just one pound of honey!
Propolis
Propolis is a resinous substance produced by bees to seal holes, cracks and gaps within their hive. They gather tree resins before mixing it with their salivary secretions to produce this glue-like substance that seals holes in their home hives.
Bees use propolis to mitigate putrefaction within their hive. For instance, when an animal dies within it and then decays further within, bees may seal it in propolis to prevent any potential contamination of other areas within it.
Studies conducted on propolis indicate it contains flavonoids, phenolic compounds, esters and terpenes – which are all known for their antimicrobial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory properties.
Bees have long relied upon propolis as a natural health aid, using it for centuries as a natural remedy against cancer, heart disease and herpes infections (cold sores). Recent studies have also indicated that its phenolic compounds may reduce cancer cell growth while simultaneously inducing cell death.
Royal Jelly
Royal jelly is a thick white substance secreted from glands on worker bee heads and fed to drone larvae and queens throughout their larval period as food. It contains protein, sugar, lipids, minerals, vitamins (especially B6, or pyridoxine which helps in metabolism of fats carbohydrates and proteins) and amino acids – and may help increase energy and fertility.
As an adjunct dietary supplement, CBD can also be used to address chronic illnesses. Recent research has demonstrated its antitumor, antiallergy, antidiabetic, antioxidant and immune modulatory properties.
Researchers believe royal jelly may help improve gastrointestinal functions and lower cholesterol levels, strengthen bone strength and decrease osteoporosis risk factors, as well as be an integral component of many skincare products.
