OTHER PRODUCTS OF THE HIVE.

Other products of the hive

Besides honey, the bee produces pollen, royal jelly, beeswax and propolis.

The pollen :

If you observe a bee gathering nectar on a flower, you will notice that its legs are covered in a red or yellow floury substance : it is the pollen collected on the flower stamens. Part of this pollen will serve to pollinate other flowers, and part will be brought back to the hive. Pollen has an influence in the construction of the wax combs , on the queen bee's laying, and repercussions on the honey collection.

Once the gatherer bee has collected the pollen, it kneads it with its saliva in order to make balls that it fixes to hairs of its legs. It is this saliva, rich in antibacterial enzymes, that gives the pollen some of its therapeutic qualities, but some come from the plants themselves.

The beekeepers collect the pollen for medicinal needs or to give it to needy hives after winter. Collecting it is easy : the beekeeper puts a pollen trap in the hive entrance, which combs the bees' legs as they walk past. The small pellets of pollen fall into a drawer from which they are collected each evening before the night humidity descends. However, in order not to harm the colony, collections must be limited to 2 kg per hive per year.

Royal jelly :

is a whitish fluid secreted by the feeder worker bees from their cephalic glands. It is the food of the whole brood during the first three days of life. From the fourth day, only the eggs in the royal cells (the future queen bees) and the queen bee herself receive this food, essential to the survival of the species. Royal jelly has fantastic growth development power as it can multiply the weight of a worker bee by about a thousand times in the space of three days, and the weight of a royal larva by two thousand times in the space of five days! A queen bee can live between five and six years if she is fed exclusively on royal jelly (whereas a worker bee lives no longer than 45 days), lays about 2 000 eggs a day, and has a healthy life protected from bacteria and parasites. While this substance has long been attributed semi-miraculous powers, twentieth century scientists have recognized its many nutritional, energetic and metabolic advantages , after numerous experiments.

Cephalic : on the head.

Brood : group of young bee larvas.

A large number of components still remain unknown and the future holds new discoveries in store. The use of royal jelly for therapeutic purposes has led the beekeepers to control production. The queen bee is removed from the hive and a frame of artificial cells (queen-cell cup) is installed, into which worker bee larvas are implanted. These larvas, adopted by the nurses as "future substitutes" of the absent queen bee, will be fed copiously with royal jelly.

Three days later, when the quality and the quantity of the royal jelly are at their peak, the beekeeper takes the frame out, extracts the larvas with tweezers and removes the precious substance by suction. In this way, between 250 and 500 g can be collected from each hive every year! Royal jelly can be taken pure or blended with honey.

propolis :

Bees gather resin from the buds of certain trees (such as poplars or birches) with its tongue, blending it with its saliva. This substance is used for making propolis. The reddish or brown resin like substance is used by the bees to fill in the fissures and cracks of the hive in order to protect it against the propolis is found in the entrance of the hive. This natural putty has bactericidal, antifungal, anæsthetic and healing qualities . Only 200 of its molecules are known, but the Egyptians knew, for instance, that it could prevent decomposition and used it to mummify their dead. The beekeeper collects it by scraping the frames and their covers. 100 to 400 g a year can be collected from each hive. At the moment, propolis is used for its healing qualities, especially in dermatology, but we are a long way from knowing and exploiting all of its virtues.

Beeswax :

Artist, craftsman, mason and architect, the wax bee aligns perfectly hexagonal wax cells (alveoli) in the hive that will be the cribs of the young larvas and will also be used to store honey. These are the honeycombs. Bees need wax to make honeycombs and their opercula , (an operculum is the small lid that closes the alveolus when it is full of honey or when it contains a 9 day old larva).

To make this wax, bees hang in clusters and secrete a thin, translucent film from their abdominal wax glands.

Beeswax is not a plant product but a bee secretion . They extract the film from their abdomen with their back legs, bring it up to their mouth and masticate it with their mandibles, soaking it with saliva to make it more malleable.

The thin films are then glued together little by little until they form a geometrically perfect alveolus . The honeycombs made by the bees must be replaced every 3 years. The beekeeper takes the beeswax from the honeycombs and the opercula having first extracted the honey, then melts them down using one of several processes.

Summary | Top of the page

Definition of honey | The many flavours of honey | The consistency of honey | The nutritional value of honey

Other products of the hive | Mythology of bees honey

Bernard Michaud S.A.

Domaine Saint Georges

Chemin de Berdoulou

64290 GAN

Tel : (33) Ø5 59 21 91 00

Fax : (33) Ø5 59 21 66 60