Bee Propolis

Bee Propolis - the basics

To make simple, we can think of propolis as bee's own medicine.

It is a mixture of various resins collected by the honeybees from plants - particularly from flowers, leaf buds and the bark of trees.

Carried on their back legs, bees use propolis as some sort of natural cement to strengthen and seal cracks in their hives.

The question is, why do the bees use propolis when there are many other natural glue available in nature? This is where it gets interesting.

The Need for Protection

Just imagine yourself living in a super crowded apartment, and sharing it with other 50,000 living beings. This apartment of yours is so small, it's hard for you to even get in or out of the door. It's like making a crowded Tokyo subway your home.

That is exactly what it feels like in a beehive.

If you're living in such a tight space, you know that you need :-

1. A strong structure to hold the busy units, and more importantly, you also need 
2. An effective  way to keep the whole apartment clean and free of bacteria. Just one "unclean" occupant can bring massive outbreak in the whole kingdom.

In short, these bees must find a way to avoid bacterial and viral infection from spreading in their congested home. Without some kind of antibiotics protection, the whole colony could be dead.

Propolis as God-Sent Protection

Luckily for these bees, nature provides them with a solution. What they have to do is to collect the same substance that trees use to protect itself from infection and use it as some sort of "medicine" in their hives.

Certain trees like poplar, willow, birch and horse chestnut produce a special antibiotic sap to protect it from infection. Bees gather these saps, took it back to their hives and coat their hives the with it, in much the same way we use to paint and caulk our home.

These sap, called propolis, will seal, line and strengthen the hives. Not only that, when these honeybees brush themselves against these brownish substance, they automatically become immunized.

Perhaps that is why the Greek called the substance propolis, a term which simply mean "Defender of the City".

Propolis as Sterilizing Agent
Apart from that, scientist studying honey bees are also surprised when they found out that propolis is also used to coat dead intruders found in beehives.

If rodents like rats enter the home of these bees, it will be stung to death and coated with propolis. The reason is simple. 

Having no abilities to get the dead carcass away from the hive, bees will simply sterilized the dead bodies to avoid an epidemic in the congested space. Due to it's anti microbial and antiviral properties, propolis is the safest and most effective way to inhibit the growth of unwanted microbes.