Royal Jelly, Bee Pollen and Propolis Ticture

Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens. It is secreted from the hypopharyngeal glands in the heads of worker bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony.

When worker bees decide to make a new queen, either because the old one is weakening, or was killed, they choose several small larvae and feed them with copious amounts of royal jelly in specially constructed queen cells. This type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs.

Cultivation

Royal jelly is secreted from the glands in the heads of worker bees, and is fed to all bee larvae, whether they are destined to become drones (males), workers (sterile females) or queens (fertile females). After three days, the drone and worker larvae are no longer fed royal jelly, but queen larvae continue to be fed this special substance throughout their development. It is harvested by stimulating colonies with movable frame hives to produce queen bees. Royal jelly is collected from each individual queen cell (honeycomb) when the queen larvae are about four days old. It is collected from queen cells because these are the only cells in which large amounts are deposited; when royal jelly is fed to worker larvae, it is fed directly to them, and they consume it as it is produced, while the cells of queen larvae are "stocked" with royal jelly much faster than the larvae can consume it. Therefore, only in queen cells is the harvest of royal jelly practical.

A well-managed hive during a season of 5–6 months can produce approximately 500 g of royal jelly. Since the product is perishable, producers must have immediate access to proper cold storage (e.g., a household refrigerator or freezer) in which the royal jelly is stored until it is sold or conveyed to a collection centre. Sometimes honey or beeswax are added to the royal jelly, which is thought to aid its preservation.

Composition

Royal jelly is composed of 60 to 70 percent water, 12 to 15 percent protein, 10 to 16 percent sugars, and 3 to 6 percent fats, with vitamins, salts, and free amino acids making up the rest.

Royal jelly is collected and sold as a dietary supplement, claiming various health benefits because of components like B-complex vitamins such as pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) and vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). The overall composition of royal jelly is 67% water, 12.5% crude protein (including small amounts of many different amino acids), and 11% simple sugars (monosaccharides), also including a relatively high amount (5%) of fatty acids. It also contains many trace minerals, some enzymes, antibacterial and antibiotic components, and trace amounts of vitamin C. The fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, are completely absent from royal jelly.

Epigenetic effects

The honey bee queens and workers represent one of the most striking examples of environmentally controlled phenotypic polymorphism. In spite of their identical, clonal nature at the DNA level they are strongly differentiated across a wide range of characteristics including anatomical and physiological differences, the longevity of the queen and reproductive capacity. Queens constitute the sexual caste and have large active ovaries, whereas workers have only rudimental inactive ovaries and are functionally sterile. The queen/worker developmental divide is controlled epigenetically by differential feeding with royal jelly. A female larva destined to become a queen is fed large quantities of royal jelly that triggers a cascade of molecular events resulting in queen development. It has been shown that this phenomenon is mediated by an epigenetic modification of DNA known as CpG methylation. Silencing the expression of an enzyme that methylates DNA in newly hatched larvae led to a royal jelly-like effect on the larval developmental trajectory; the majority of individuals with reduced DNA methylation levels emerged as queens with fully developed ovaries. This finding suggests that DNA methylation in honey bees allows the expression of
epigenetic information to be differentially altered by nutritional input.

Uses

Royal jelly has been reported as a possible immunomodulatory agent in Graves' disease. It has also been reported to stimulate the growth of glial cells and neural stem cells in the brain. To date, there is preliminary evidence that it may have some cholesterol-lowering, anti-inflammatory, wound-healing, and antibiotic effects, though the last three of these effects are unlikely to be realized if ingested (due to the destruction of the substances involved through digestion, or neutralization via changes in pH). Research also suggests that the 10-Hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA) found in royal jelly may inhibit the vascularization of tumors. Royal Jelly is said to improve fertility in both men and women, in men by increasing the quality of their sperm, and in women by increasing the quality of their eggs.

There are also some preliminary experiments (on cells and lab animals) in which royal jelly may have some benefit regarding certain other diseases, though there is no solid evidence for those claims, and further experimentation and validation would be needed to prove any useful benefit.

Royal jelly can also be found in some beauty products.

Royal jelly may cause allergic reactions in humans ranging from hives, asthma, to even fatal anaphylaxis. The incidence of allergic side effect in people that consume royal jelly is unknown. However, it has been suggested that the risk of having an allergy to royal jelly is higher in people who already have known allergies.


Bee Pollen

1.What is Bee Pollen?

While most people recognize the term bee pollen, many people do not know what bee pollen actually is or what it has to offer. Bee Pollen is one of nature¹s unique and most powerful foods. It is flower pollen that bees collect for food. Bee pollen offers a treasure trove of special plant nutrients. Here are some of the qualities that make Bee Pollen unique:

1. The nutrients found in Bee Pollen are extremely high quality. Not only does bee pollen contain high quality nutrients that can be burned as fuel, it also provides nutrients that are helpful in maintaining and promoting health.

2. The nutritional makeup of Bee Pollen is extremely broad spectrum. The wide range of nutrients found in Bee Pollen include polyphenols, enzymes, beneficial fatty acids, free amino acids, vitamin complexes, chelated minerals and trace elements, as well as a large array of phytonutrients that have yet to be identified. This nutritional diversity makes Bee Pollen an ideal dietary supplement as a complement and boost to a well-rounded diet.

3. The nutrients in Bee Pollen are very concentrated. This nutritional density means that even small amounts provide effective and valuable levels of important nutrients. In other words, bee pollen, as a food source or as a supplement, provides low volume, but high intensity, nutrition.

An important question is, how did bee pollen become such a superfood? In nature, everything happens for a reason. Pollen¹s primary function is to act as the male spore in the reproductive cycle. It is not necessary for pollen to be nutritious to fulfill that duty. The reproductive spores of other plants and animals are not nutritious. So how and why did bee pollen develop into such a unique, broad-spectrum source of nutrients? To answer that question, we must first examine the relationship between flowering plants and bees, and see how that relationship evolved over time.

2.The Symbiotic Relationship

150 million years ago, flowering plants first appeared on Earth. This was an extremely important event in Earth¹s history, because for the first time, nutrients became concentrated into plant structures, called fruits and vegetables. The development of fruits and vegetables was a pre-condition for the evolution of man. Fruits and vegetables provided mammals with the food they needed to have in order to evolve. In other words, without bees and flowering plants, humans may not have evolved at all.

Since their first appearance on this planet, flowering plants and bees formed a symbiotic partnership. In other words, they developed a relationship in which they both helped each other, in extremely important, and mutually beneficial ways.

Pollen is the male reproductive spore of the plants. Flowers produce pollen to fertilize other flowers. But for this to happen, pollen must get from the flower of one plant to fertilize the flower of another plant. How does it happen? As everyone knows, bees do the work, depositing pollen from flower to flower. When bees visit flowers, they fertilize them by spreading the pollen that they collected from previous plants. This simple act, repeated over and over again, becomes the force that re-starts the life cycle of our planet every spring. It is the genesis of the food chain.

This is obviously an important service for the plant, but how does the bee benefit? Bees collect pollen for food. The lifespan of a worker bee is only 7-8 weeks. Bees accomplish a tremendous amount of work during that short period of time, and their metabolisms run at very high levels. Just as a racecar needs more powerful fuel to run well and fast, bees require a high-intensity diet to satisfy their nutritional requirements. Besides honey, which provides calories to burn as fuel, bee pollen is all that bees eat. In the evolutionary process, pollen that bees collect has evolved into the richest fuel possible. Pollen provides the nutritional building blocks needed to nurture the young and grow the population of the hive. In the spring, when bees start to bring pollen back to the hive, that is a signal to the Queen that she can start laying eggs. Pollen, then, is essential nutrition for the bees. Since both the bees and the flowers benefit, their relationship is called a symbiotic relationship.

The Evolution of Bee Pollen

The development of every plant and animal on the planet was shaped by evolution. Evolution is driven by gene mutations, or genetic accidents. Most mutations cause detrimental changes that cause the plant or animal to die. However, on very rare occasions, beneficial mutations occur, and these are passed on to successive generations-as Nature selects for stronger, more optimal individuals or in popular terms 'survival of the fittest'. Beneficial mutations allow plant and animals to develop a competitive edge over similar plants in the battle for reproduction and survival.

Here¹s an example: in the rainforest, there is a huge variety of plants. In fact, there are so many plants that they battle each other for space and sunlight. The trees that have evolved to grow the tallest, and the fastest, out-compete the other trees in the race for sunlight. They are the plants that win the battle for survival. However, this may be temporary, because other plants are evolving to become more competitive with the leaders. Evolution is an on-going competition.

In much the same way that rainforest trees compete for sunlight, flowering plants compete with each other for the bees services. The ability of a flowering plant to attract bees translates directly into their reproductive success. If bees give a greater share of attention to a certain species of plant, then that plant will propagate more and will become the dominant plant in the area. While bees collect pollen from all types of plants, they show preferences for certain types of pollen. The pollen that is most attractive to bees, naturally, is pollen that provides the best nutrients for their health. In this plant competition, reproductive success is driven by the ability to evolve the most nutritious pollen that will attract the most bees. Plants with lower quality pollen are then driven to evolve higher quality pollen in order to become more competitive for the bees attention.

150 million years of this evolutionary pressure has driven bee pollen to become more and more nutritionally superior. The end product of this process of natural selection is bee pollen with high intensity nutrition.



3.Bee Pollen Studies

So, what¹s on the menu? What do we mean by intense nutrition? As we have described, bee pollen nutrients do more than just provide calories to burn as fuel. Recently, researchers have begun to study specific nutrients, and, also, classes of nutrients, that have qualitative, or beneficial, effects on the living system in other words, nutrients that help the human body optimize its normal functions and promote a state of health. One important activity that researchers focus on is antioxidant activity.

What does antioxidant activity mean? In the body, unstable oxygen molecules, or free radicals, create havoc with the living system. Free radicals are also called Reactive Oxygen Species, and they are created by glitches in the body¹s normal metabolism. They are also created by environmental toxins, smoking, aging, and other destructive mechanisms. The normal lifespan of a free radical is one millionth of a second. That is because they are so unstable that they will very quickly use their biochemical force to stabilize themselves. Free radicals exist only long enough for them to bump into something and capture enough electrons or hydrogen atoms to achieve a stable form. This can be extremely destructive for the unwilling donor. Free radical damage is associated with many degenerative processes of the body, including aging. Examples of free radicals are H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide), CO (carbon monoxide), O (singlet oxygen), O2- (superoxide), and OH (hydroxy molecules). Note that all of these molecules contain oxygen molecules. The problem is that these molecules are chemically unstable ­ antioxidants neutralize these reactive oxygen molecules and make them stable.

Luckily for the body, antioxidants can neutralize free radicals before they can do too much damage to tissues. Antioxidants quench free radicals by efficiently smothering and stabilizing them. They then recharge themselves by interacting with a complex network of other antioxidants.

Most dietary antioxidants are bioflavonoids. Bee Pollen contains large amounts of bioflavonoids, and that is why it shows so much antioxidant activity. But besides performing antioxidant duties, scientific studies have shown that bioflavonoids also perform many other important functions in the body.

Certain bioflavonoids increase capillary strength in the body; some benefit the liver. Other bioflavonoids help maintain bone density, and the list goes on and on. The presence of antioxidant bioflavonoids should be considered significant for more than just the antioxidant protection they provide.



4.The Use of Bee Pollen

What does all this mean in practical application to the human diet? It is important to achieve a diet that provides a good balance of all types of nutrients. Because of the broad spectrum of nutrients that bee pollen offers, it can be an excellent addition to a diet. Bee pollen can make it easy to fill in the gaps in a person¹s nutritional profile especially when we don¹t all consume our recommended 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. That is one reason why bee pollen is such a valuable supplement to the diet, because it supplies many of the dietary antioxidants, bioflavonoids and polyphenols that we are missing by not eating our recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables.

In complementary medicine, many, if not all, of the effective protocols call for a cleansing and detoxifying diet. This is usually accomplished by eliminating processed foods, such as refined white bread and pasta, as well as congestive foods like cheese and dairy products. It is important to replace these harmful foods with high-quality whole foods, like fruits, vegetables, and bee pollen that promote health. Bee pollen can be an essential component for a high-quality dietary program, because it is such a potent and high quality source of nutrients.

Many people place a lot of faith in the power of supplements. There are many supplements on the market that can be highly effective. But diet is the foundation of health. This means that, fundamentally, diet must be the platform on which optimal health occurs, not the obstacle that prevents it from happening. Optimal health occurs when the body can effectively martial its own defensive and healing resources. For that to happen, the body must be nutritionally fortified and strengthened in a way that allows its immune system to react, defend and fight, rather than be hindered by a poor, congestive diet. Supplementing with bee pollen can be an important first step in the process of developing a sound, high quality diet.

To accomplish great things, work is required. For optimal health, there is no such thing as a 'silver bullet', or a tablet that makes everything healthy and whole. For optimal health, diet is the foundation, and it requires work to make it right.

Let High Desert® Bee Pollen help you build your foundation of health.

Propollis Tincture

Recipe Propolis Tincture
How to make a Propolis Tincture?

General information:

Propolis or cement resin needs the bee to the health care. It makes it of the resin of certain trees and own Fennenten. With this cement resin it protects its stick against pathogens, because it works like a natural antibiotic or disinfectant against bacteria, viruses and mushrooms. Already the old Egyptians have the preserving effect of this Propolis estimated.


Propolis is the most valuable and most important hygiene means of the bees. It essentially consists of resins, wax, oils and insoluble components. In addition it contains valuable trace elements (e.g. zinc, iron and copper) and vitamine (e.g. vitamin B and E).


Production of a Propolis propolis-Tincture


30g Rohpropolis or Propolis excerpt powder, 60g of a 96%igen of medical alcohol.


Cleaned Propolis low-freeze and afterwards finely grind. The in such a way won powder or the Propolis excerpt powder with the alcohol fill up. 14 days locked at room temperature to stand, per day in until twice lets the mixture vibrate.


Afterwards and into a bottle rackings filter the tinktur off by a paper filter. Have patience, the tinktur seep in the absolute slow motion speed through. The procedure can take several hours up.