ROYAL JELLY, "YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT!"
Royal jelly is a secretion from workers’ glands. It is fed to the queen bee throughout her larval and adult life. It is also fed to larvae for the first two and a half days. It is a creamy milky-white color, strongly acidic, has a prudent odor and bitter taste.The queen eats only royal jelly, the worker bees eat some royal jelly and the drones eat the least amount. Royal jelly is high in protein and is rich in vitamins B, C and D. Royal jelly is used in many things such as in dietary supplements, additives in lotions, cosmetics and creams. It is in demand as a human health food because it is known to improve human health.
BEESWAX
Beeswax is a very helpful product. Beeswax is a secretion from four glands on the underside of a worker bees’ abdomen. Some major uses of beeswax are cosmetics and candle making. Some minor uses are lotions, cold creams, ointments, salves, lipsticks, rouges, pill coatings, waterproofing, coatings for electrical apparatus, floor and furniture polishes, leather polishes, arts and crafts items, adhesives, crayons, inks, basketball molding, grafting wax, ski wax and ironing wax.
Most of the world’s beeswax comes from Africa. Roman wax tablets were found in Egypt. Persians and Syrians both covered important bodies with wax before burial. Beeswax death masks were made by Mme Tussaud for King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette after their execution.
There are two ways to make beeswax candles. There is the dipping method where the wicks were repeatedly dipped into a pool of melted beeswax. There is also the pouring method where the wick is suspended and a dipper full of melted wax would be poured over it and would run off into a big container below.
PROPOLIS
For honey bees, propolis is used for a kind of glue. Honey bees gather propolis from trees and other vegetation. They use it to seal cracks and crevices in the hive to make it less drafty when it is cold. Propolis is sticky when it is warm and it is difficult to deal with when it is hard. Propolis was used for medical purposes by doctors in Via Sacra. Roman doctors favored it more than wax. Propolis is also an effective dressing for wounds and was used during the Boer War (Oct. 11, 1899-May 31, 1902).
Propolis is also used for a variety of things. It was used in veterinary practice in Russia. It is used as ointments for healing animal cuts and wounds. Doctors have experimented with an alcohol tincture for hearing defects. If propolis is mixed with mineral spirits, it can be used as a natural varnish. Famous violinists used propolis in their violin varnish.
POLLINATION
Since many of our pollinators are now scarce, we are dependent on the honey bee to pollinate our crops. Pollination starts when a field bee crawls around a plant blossom. The honey bee is dusted with pollen. Then the field bee flies over to another blossom with the pollen in its hair. When the bee lands, the pollen falls onto this blossom’s stigma. Now a fruit, vegetable or other crop can grow.
Farmers actually rented colonies of bees to pollinate their crops. Even though other insects pollinate crops too, honey bees are one of the few that are synchronized and managed with the development of crops. If honey bees didn’t pollinate, crops wouldn’t be able to grow. Without the pollination from the honey bees there would be one third less crops in the world than there is now.
(Fuente:Insaceta-Inspecta)