User's Guide to Propolis, Royal Jelly, Honey, and Bee Pollen: Learn How to Use "Bee Foods" to Enhance Your Health and Immunity.

By C. Leigh Broadhurst, Ph.D. and Jack Challem

The food products of bees have long been attributed with many health benefits. They can lead to greater stamina, increased resistance to disease, and, counter-intuitively, often help reduce pollen allergies. Scientific studies have revealed that bee propolis, royal jelly, honey and bee pollen are rich sources of antioxidant phytochemicals - vitamin-like substances similar to those found in common vegetables. In this User's Guide, Dr. Broadhurst explains the scientific rationale behind bee foods and describes how they can improve health.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Jul 15, 2005
• ISBN: 9781591206903

C. Leigh Broadhurst, Ph.D.

Broadhurst is president of 22nd Century Nutrition Inc., which specializes in fitness, nutrition, and natural medicine consulting for individuals and corporations.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The honeybee ( Apis mellifera ) is the world’s most popular insect. Native to Europe, it has been introduced successfully in every continent except Antarctica. Bees thrive from Russia and Scandinavia through the Tropics and down under in Australia and New Zealand. The immense value of honeybees to the world is not commonly appreciated.

According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, one mouthful in three of the foods you eat directly or indirectly depends on pollination by honeybees. Honeybee pollination is worth 14 billion dollars annually to the agriculture industry.

Apiculture is the formal name for commercial bee keeping. Apiculture was practiced in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, India, and China. Ancient Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Moslem, and Native American cultures revered the honeybee, as do their modern counterparts. China has a 3,000-year continuous tradition of apiculture. In the 1600s, workers in Shenyang collected 2,500 to 3,000 kilograms of honey each year just to supply the Emperor’s Palace.

Did you know that throughout history apiculture has been just as important for providing medicine as it has food? Beekeepers were usually among the longest-lived individuals in a town or village, due to their prodigious consumption and use of beehive products.

These valuable beehive products are honey, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly. In this book the many natural health uses of apiculture are brought up to date and scientifically documented. Let me give you an idea of how you and your family can benefit from these amazing substances:

Honey is the world’s best-known treatment for burns, infected wounds, and skin ulcers. It can kill wound bacteria that are resistant to anti biotic drugs. Using honey as a sweetener in stead of sugar adds antioxidant protection to your diet.

Taking propolis daily can reduce both the number of respiratory infections you contract during the winter season and their severity. Propolis salve is a highly effective treatment for herpes. It is also one of the most effective herbal detoxifiers and antioxidants known, and as such can benefit people with chronic diseases from arthritis to cancer.

A teaspoon of bee pollen provides you with a quick and easy way to eat the equivalent of one large serving of vegetables. Bee pollen is an effective treatment for hay fever, prostatitis, and varicose veins.

Taking royal jelly daily can reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease and strengthen your immunity. It’s also a superior cosmetic ingredient for moisturizing and smoothing facial wrinkles.

Honey, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly each have their own chapter in this book that’s more or less self-contained. However, it’s important that you at least skim Chapter 1 first because many important terms are defined there that will be used throughout the book. This also makes Chapter 1 the most demanding to read in the book, but worth investing your time and attention.

Each chapter includes details from research studies that explain how bee products work medicinally. These sections are more scientific than others in the chapter and you do not need to read them to use this book.

Please take the time to understand this fascinating and truly helpful information about beehive products. The natural health uses of honey, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly are so diverse that any household can find something that applies. After you’ve read this book, I guarantee you will appreciate the honeybee as never before!

CHAPTER 1

HONEY—SWEET PROTECTION AGAINST INFECTION

Honey is made from flower nectar that is collected by worker honeybees in spring, summer, and early autumn. Some worker bees also collect honeydew from the sugary secretions of aphids that feed on tree sap. The nectar is greatly concentrated and is stored in wax cells, thousands of which form the honeycomb. In a natural honeybee colony, honey serves as food for the bees through the winter when plants are dormant. In an apiculture hive, where most of the honeycomb is removed to extract the honey and beeswax, the beekeeper provides the bees with sugar or a corn-syrup solution to sustain them.

Beekeepers earn most of their income by renting their bee colonies to farmers and orchardists. The hives are transported to the places where important crops are in bloom, and the bees work for food, gathering nectar and pollen while pollinating the crops. Pollinating California’s almond trees alone takes about 1 million bee colonies. Honey is the tasty result of all this pollination effort.

The Composition of Honey

For millennia, honey has been appreciated for its delicious sweet flavor and digestibility. Honey is 15 to 21 percent water by weight, and almost all of the remainder is carbohydrate. About 85 percent of the solids in honey are the simple sugars glucose and fructose. There are minor amounts of sucrose, maltose, and other sugars—the exact composition varies with the honey.

The sugar molecules in honey are strongly attracted to the water and bond to it. This is one reason why honey is a viscous syrup instead of a crystalline solid like table sugar (pure sucrose). If an attempt is made to dry out honey, it will rapidly reabsorb water from the atmosphere and return to its liquid state.

Honey does crystallize sometimes. Crystallization can happen spontaneously in a jar that has been on the shelf for a while, or honey can be purposely crystallized by the manufacturer to make spreadable honey products. However, crystalline honey is still sticky and contains lots of water; it is not dry and spoonable like pure sucrose crystals.

A few percent of honey consists of phytochemicals from the various nectar source plants. These phytochemicals cause endless variation among honeys, similar to the effects of adding various herbs, spices, or extracts to plain bread. Unprocessed or lightly processed honey always retains the flavor and aroma of the nectar source plants, and this is what really makes it special.

Phytochemicals Natural, biologically active chemicals made by plants, such as lycopene in tomatoes and watermelon, quercetin in tea and onions, anthocyanins in grapes and bilberry, and menthol in spearmint and pennyroyal.

Raw, unprocessed honey is like fine wine—the source plants, growing location, season, climate, weather, processing, and just plain luck influence the color, aroma, and flavor. Commercial beehives may be placed in orange groves to produce fragrant orange-scented honey, or in white clover fields to produce light, mild, all-purpose clover honey. Buckwheat flowers produce strong, dark, musky honey that’s an excellent substitute for molasses in baking or barbecue sauce. However, buckwheat honey like buckwheat pancakes is definitely an acquired taste for the gourmet palate!

Honey

Reviews for User's Guide to Propolis, Royal Jelly, Honey, and Bee Pollen

[Daniel Lim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Clear explanation on the why, not just the benefits.

[Mrs. Muller · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I want to share my story!
I contracted HSV from a onng for the first time with rejection... on top of it, my outbreaks were quite aggressive. I spiraled into a deep depression. I didn't want herpes to change me, although i questioned my sexual lifestyle, i knew i hadn't done anything wrong. But I had to change. I couldn't continue with the sexual lifestyle I had been living... It was also strange because now i was a woman without sexual power. So, I suffered in my head and dealt with my outbreaks feeling very alone. I used this website for support. Everyone kept telling me i can still date a non HSV person, but i knew it was going to be difficult, especially with my case. So one evening i decided to try a natural medicine called Herbal mixture and even before that i visit a site called herpesmeetup.com. First impressions of the site... Creepy! There was hardly anyone from my area, and the ones that were did not seem like quality people. I got harassed by a couple of the guys from my area. I broadened my search to North America, and the quality of most of the people still seemed questionable, which actually made me feel more depressed. I thought, this is the group of fish-in-the-sea i have reduced myself too. And where are all these people with HSV?! I thought the majority of the population was supposed to have it! I continued to browse the site... There was only ONE person who stood out to me. I would read his profile over and over. Peek at his pictures throughout the day. He really seemed perfect for me. But he was all the way in Florida... And i was in Canada. I thought, don't bother... it will never happen, he's too far away. Don't set yourself up for more disappointment.One day, he sent me a message. And he told me the same thing i was thinking! "You keep standing out to me on this dating site."
What did i do? I blew him off! I didn't want to be disappointed i couldn't meet him. After awhile i noticed he changed his picture... He is SOOOO handsome, and he cut his hair into a retro style (i really dig retro) so i couldn't help myself. I wrote him "Nice hair"
It sparked a conversation and immediately i realized, this guy is special. He also had the same HSV as me, which he has had for 15 years. Suddenly we were talking on the phone when i told him that i'm planing to make used of herbal medicine before i join the group and he said he's on herbal medicine that he got from a man in West Africa called Dr. AGBOMINA. Then  We hadn't even met each other but we started feeling like this was a relationship. We would cook together on Skype, watch movies, and on "date nights" he would have dinner delivered to my home and we would eat together. After four months we were dying to meet. So I flew down to visit him for two weeks when i started applying the herbal medicine he order from Dr. AGBOMINA. It was the best two weeks of my life. We just complimented each other so much it wasn't even funny. People would stop us and tell us how happy we looked.
When i had to leave i felt like i was ripping my heart out. I never felt this way about anyone before, i never felt so connected. I am a woman who knows what she wants, and i have never been willing to settle. But for the first time i felt like, this is the one. I never thought i would be cured with the herbal medicine he order from Dr. AGBOMINA or even  meet that man. And for the first time i was also fantasizing about marriage! I have never been a conventional woman, so these were really REALLY new feelings.
After a year i came to visit him again, and he proposed! We got married and we live in a little piece of jungle together. I'm so happy!
I really do suffer from severe outbreaks and i thank God for using DR. AGBOMINA herbal medicine to cure us from herpes, BUT i remind myself everyday i would have never met my soul mate if it wasn't for herpes. And therefore i am grateful to have it and also grateful that we were able to get rid of it with the natural medicine. We are both not very conventional people. We eloped for the marriage, but are still planning a big wedding celebration for the family, which is basically going to be a big party and bbq in our backyard. He is a Creative Director whose into punk and I am a Burlesque Artist... It's perfect. Please my fellow warries kindly contact Dr. Agbomina if you have such disease or any via his email at [e-mail] you can go through his Website  https://dragbonherbs.weebly.com for natural healing. So the moral of the story is this. Always be optimistic. And use your STI as an excuse to evolve and perhaps take more risks in an effort to be happier here is my email address [e-mail].

[Succulent Kelly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Am really grateful and thankful for what dr Francis has done for me and my family. i have be suffering from HERPES for good five years with no solution, the diseases almost took my life and because I was unable to work and I was also loosing lots of money for medication, but one faithful day when I went online, I met lots of testimonies about this great man so I decided to give it a try and to God be the glory he did it. If you need his help or you also want to get cured just the way I got mine, just email dr Francis with : [e-mail] or WhatsApp [phone] and get your healing. He has cure for other deadly diseases like
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