Bee Products - Honey

Bee Products - Honey

Bee products have been used since ancient times to feed, nourish, and heal. Bee pollen, royal jelly, propolis, and honey all have practical uses for nutrition and healing. And the beauty of these products is that science is completely inc 242i81c apable of duplicating the constituents within any of these by-products, or of synthetically reproducing them. All must be made by the bees themselves.

Bees make honey from the nectar they get from flower blossoms. The transformation begins in the bees' honey sac. The process is completed in the hive itself. To make one pound of honey, bees must convert over 70,000 loads of nectar. Now you know where the saying "busy as a bee" comes from!

Honey does a lot more than just sweeten your herbal teas. Honey contains glucose, fructose, proteins, antimicrobials, hormones, organic acids, and carbohydrates. It also contains a complex mixture of vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. Raw honey also contains live enzymes that are vitally important for the proper functioning of all of our body systems.

You may be wondering why so many people recommend using honey to sweeten instead of white sugar. For one reason, honey is built of simple sugars, requiring less work for the body to convert that sugar into energy. White sugar is highly refined, and requires far more processing to be converted into energy. Even then, the body cannot assimilate all the by-products of converting white sugars. The remainder ends up stored in the fat tissue. It also stimulates the improper production of insulin in the body. Eating white sugar actually can leach valuable minerals from the body, the same ones that honey put in. White sugar has also been proven to be a carcinogen, and it contains no vitamins or minerals. It also weakens bone strength, and inhibits calcium absorption in the intestines. The glucose in honey increases the body's absorption abilities of calcium, zinc, and magnesium, and the glucose passes into the bloodstream within 10 minutes of ingestion, providing a quick energy boost, whereas white sugar must be processed by the body before it can be converted into energy.

Honey is antibiotic, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, anti-anemic, tonic, laxative, anti-allergenic, expectorant, and anti-carcinogenic. It is an overall tonic to all systems in the body, and is of special use in the intestinal and skeletal systems. It is high in vitamins B and C, most all of the B-complex, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, potassium, silicon, and a host of other minerals. It is a source of rapid energy, not needing to be processed by the body to convert the useful sugar content. It increases calcium absorption, can increase hemoglobin count, and in combination with vinegar can be helpful to arthritic joints.

Honey has been used throughout the ages to heal wounds. Egyptian papyri dating from before 2000 BC shows its uses as a wound salve. It provides protection for open wounds from infection, and it boosts the healing process itself. When honey mixes with the fluids from the body in the wound, it actually causes those cells to release hydrogen peroxide to cleanse the wound and promote healing. Honey has also been proven useful in healing ulcers and gastric lesions. Its specific properties have also proven beneficial in treating respiratory ailments.

You should not give honey to any child under the age of three. It may cause an allergic reaction or respiratory difficulties in children this young.

Store honey at room temperature. It may crystallize over time, and in that case, you can simply warm it in a warm-water bath to reliquify. It is best to purchase raw, unmolested honey to receive the maximum benefits possible from the honey. Honey is made from pollens collected from a wide area by workers in each hive. Therefore, there will be color and taste differences depending on the kind of pollen gathered, the time of year, and the mixture the bees used. These differences should be embraced, and there is nothing wrong with honey that looks a different color than the last batch you may have purchased. Honey has an almost indefinite shelf life, as the bees remove all water from the product as it is being manufactured, and due to the fact that the honey itself is a repellant to bacteria.