4 Medicine From The Beehives You Should Know

The use of bee products for medicinal purposes is as old as the tradition of beekeeping itself. The fact is bees actually brought out not only honey but also a few other important medicinal foods. However, for the most part, these products have been under appreciated or under utilized in the modern world.

Here are four wonderful medicines from the beehives that experts believe warrant our attention.

Medicine No 1- Honey
As food for the bees, honey is the second greatest energy booster, surpassed only by dates. It also contains six times the fuel value of milk and even higher fuel value than meat, fish, eggs, grain or your leafy green vegetables.

During the Roman Empire, honey was so valued it was often used instead of gold to pay taxes. Several holy books have also highlighted the use of honey as medicine. The Koran has described honey as a “medicine for men” while in the Old Testament, the story of how Jonathan use honey to restore his strength in battling the Philistine was also told.

Used in treating wounds, honey is so effective in absorbing moisture, it effectively starve bacteria from a suitable breeding ground. Thus, it is not surprising why the Egyptians use it as a surgical dressing and Hindus and Chinese use it for curing smallpox.

Because of its versatility, honey has also been used in treating anemia, sleeplessness, constipation, insomnia, and bronchitis or treat diphtheria.

Medicine No-2: Royal Jelly
Royal jelly is the only food eaten by the queen bee. This rare, amber colored jelly is fed to bee larvae for the first three days but after the period, only the queen larvae is fed this special jelly.

In Africa, this easily spoiled royal food is believed to preserve youthfulness and cure all illnesses. And all these claims may have some basis. Royal jelly makes the queen mature more rapidly, and grows to nearly double the size of ordinary bees. While normal bees live for only forty days, the queen lives for around eight years.

German scientists, studying the health benefit of royal jelly found that it’s extremely rich in pathogenic acid, biotin and nucleic acids – the very substance that helps avoid neuritis, indigestion, premature ageing or premature gray hair.

Medicine No. 3 – Pollen
Pollen is the male portion of the flower. It’s actually a powder like material that is produced by the anthers of flowering plants and gathered by bees back to their nests.

Stored as food, bee pollen is also another age-folk medicine that has been mentioned in the great ancient writings of China, Greece, Russia and Persia.

It was told that athletes in training for the ancient Olympic games were fed large quantities of pollen-laden-honey before their events. When the Chinese was plagued by famine, the poor peasants survived by consuming cakes made of pollen and honey. Apart from that, Arabs who had to travel for a long period through the barren deserts also make a similar use of pollen they gather from date trees.

The number of allergy to pollen that plagued the modern world could also be significantly reduced if people start taking pollen as food or medicine. Research shows that natives who eat pollen are almost immune to hay fever, asthma or other respiratory diseases commonly associated with it.

At the moment, scientists have been trying to reproduce bee pollen’s effect in the laboratory. However, its chemical makeup is so complex that synthesizing it artificially has eluded even the best of modern machines.

Medicine No – 4 Propolis
Bees are very vulnerable to bacterial and viral infections. Thus, they collect a substance from wounded trees called propolis as their medicine. At their hives, the propolis is used to patch up cracks and seal the hive, effectively sterilizing it from any diseases.

It is believed that Hippocrates, the father of medicine, prescribed the use of propolis to help heal sores and ulcers, internally and externally. Unlike penicillin and other drugs, propolis is always effective. If used alongside antibiotic, propolis have been shown to increase the antibiotic’s effect by up to 100 %.

Another benefit of propolis is in dental care. Propolis mouthwash used after an oral surgery appears to shorten the healing time. A study done in 1991 showed that rats given propolis in their drinking water got less caries compared to other rats. Another study done in 1986 proposed propolis as a valuable subsidiary treatment for gum infection and plague.

In summary, all four products from the beehives actually warrant a lot of our attention. They are not only act as food but also as medicine – curing all sorts of diseases suffered by mankind.

If only we listen to Hippocrates advise to “let your food be your medicine”, a lot of diseases will simply cease to exist. Simply because our body is too strong for them. So honey, what are you waiting for?

By: Lela Iskandar Suhaimi

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This article on the benefits of honey related products is brought to you by BeePropolis.info For more information on the benefits of the bee glue or the unwanted side effects of propolis, you can head on to the site.