Here's what I'd like to believe about bees: They are in cahoots with a Higher Power to do what's right for the Benefit of Humanity and that all of their products are good, healthy, and therapeutic, that they're so therapeutic that the Medical Establishment has tried to suppress the Truth.
Oh, I would like to believe that on so many levels. First of all, I'd love to be the holder of esoteric substances and secrets that they the powerful don't want us to know. I'd love to believe that there are forces of Good and Evil in the world and that my bees and I are squarely on the Good side along with angels, kittens, chocolate, and Bruce Springsteen. Next, I'd love to believe (despite only scant and anecdotal evidence) that a benevolent God and the bees love us and want to help us.
I'd love to believe
that there are forces
of Good and Evil in
the world and that my
bees and I are squarely
on the Good side
along with angels, kittens,
chocolate, and
Bruce Springsteen.
Friends and acquaintances love telling me about new cures and therapies somebody's trying from the Medicine Chest of the Beehive. Of allergies prevented, lingering wounds healed, and so on. I just say “Hmm!” and make a note to look into it. I am genuinely glad if somebody is suffering less than they were. However, I remain a great believer in the genuine powers of the placebo effect, and I am less sure, in fact skeptical, about most of the claims of “apitherapists” (people making claims that bee products are powerful medicines). Let's take a look into the apitherapy medicine chest:
Sap is a great thing for trees. It acts like blood, transporting nutrients from roots to top branches. Like blood, it also clots when the tree suffers an injury, sealing the wound with a sticky spot that can protect it from microbes and bugs.
Tree sap is also a great thing for bees. They collect it and use it to fill small gaps in their hives, keeping out cold, bugs, and microbes. Taking the idea that if it's good for beehives, it's also good for you and me, alternative medicine companies sell propolis pills, tinctures, toothpastes, and more in health food stores.
There's clearly more mystique in selling propolis—selected, gathered, mixed, and trampled by bees—than merely selling random “tree sap.” That's okay. If it works, great. And it would be comforting to believe that, as six-legged shamans, bees are especially astute at selecting the very best, the most healthy, the most wonderful tree sap for their propolis.
If only it were true. In reality, they select pretty indiscriminately, looking for a certain workable consistency over other concerns, which means that propolis in a hive can also include tar, drying paint, petroleum jelly, that Tanglefoot sticky stuff people put around tree trunks to keep ants away, and other not-so-healthful stuff.
Still, on the other hand, if it's pure tree sap—and how can you tell, either way?—odds are good that it won't do any harm. Especially so if you happen to be a string instrument. Antonio Stradivari, the guy who made Stradivarious stringed instruments (but not the Stratocaster electric guitar), reportedly used propolis in his varnish to accentuate the wood grains of his violins. Look for it in not just health food concoctions but in some chewing gums and car waxes, too.
Royal jelly is in various health and beauty products. It has also shown up in some alternative medicine discussions as being a fertility aid for women trying to get pregnant. I guess this is the thinking:
Royal jelly is what worker bees fill queen cups with. A queen cup, of course, is an oversized comb cell that a lucky random larva gets plopped into, sort of like a random toddler being chosen from all others to become the Dalai Lama. The extra royal jelly gives the random larva working ovaries, making her a queen.
Royal jelly is what
worker bees fill queen
cups with.
What is it? It's a secretion of the worker bees. It comes from their hypopharynx, a globular structure in their upper throat. While it's true that a queen gets a generous portion of royal jelly, the worker bees get it, too . . . just not as much. (Actually, the drones get it too, so it's not just a gal thing.)
To get it from the bees requires stimulating the workers to create as many queen cells as possible, waiting for the bees to fill them with royal jelly and a grub, and drawing off the liquid by hand with a hypodermic needle or tiny vacuum. From each hive, it's possible to get about a pound of royal jelly—something less than a pint—during a season of aborting future queens.
Does it do any good for humans? Well, probably. It's got some proteins, amino acids, and B vitamins (or, if you prefer, bee vitamins). But it can also do some harm as well; if you're allergic to bee stings, there's a good chance that you'll be allergic to royal jelly as well. Will using it get you pregnant? I dunno. Probably no more (and no less) than eating at a certain pizzeria or standing on your head after sex—the placebo effect is a pretty powerful thing. Maybe there's something to it, but it almost makes you wonder if some people take that whole “birds and bees” sex talk a little too literally.
You gotta be kidding, right? Just because something hurts doesn't mean it's good for you. There's no scientific confirmation of the anecdotal reports that getting stung on purpose (for allergies, arthritis, or the symptoms of multiple sclerosis) has any beneficial effects.
When bee pheromones were first discovered, many researchers assumed that they were used only by the queen to issue orders to the workers. However, it turns out that lots of bees in the colony emit chemical signals for all sorts of things. For example, ethyl oleate is a pheromone that inhibits young bees from becoming foragers. It's a kind of alcohol that forms in the honey-storage crop of foragers and its vapor is released when foragers release nectar to the young housekeeping bees. So, if there are enough foragers in the colony, the ethyl oleate they release keeps the young bees working inside the hive. However, when there are too few foragers, the shortage of ethyl oleate stimulates some of the young ones into becoming foragers.
Bees also release pheromones that stir up the defenders of the hive when defending against an intruder.
WHY BEES MAKE THE BEST PETS, TAKE 3