Products of the Bee Hive
The products of the bee hive are honey, propolis, bee pollen, royal jelly, and beeswax. These products can play a key role in your self-suffiecient living plan.
Honey
The first product of the bee hive that everyone thinks of is honey. Honey is nectar that the bees have ripened by adding enzymes that breakdown the complex sugars in the nectar into simple sugars that are easier for the bees to digest. These sugars are also less susceptible to bacterial attack. The bees also evaporate the nectar until it contains less that 18% water. That protects the honey against fermentation caused by yeasts. Honey has powerful preservative properties and was used by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to embalm their dead. They also used it to preserve meat. The body of Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC) was brought back from Babylon in a vessal of honey for burial in his native Macedonia.
Propolis
Propolis or "bee glue," is a sticky substance made by honey bees from the resin they collect from trees. The most basic use the bees make of propolis is to seal up cracks in the hive. Propolis has powerful anti-biotic properties and makes the beehive one of the most sterile environments found in nature. The bees also use it to "mummify" an invader, such as a mouse, that they have stung to death but which is too large to remove from the hive. Propolis is used in some "natural" toothpastes.
Bee Pollen
Bee pollen or "bee breed," is from the pollen bees collect from flowering plants. The bees mix a small amount of honey, plus some enzymes, with the pollen before storing and sealing the pollen in comb cells. Bee pollen contains up to 40% protein, depending on the plants the pollen was collected from. Pollen is virtually the exclusive source of protein used by honey bees.
Royal Jelly
Royal jelly is a fluid secreted primarily from the mandibular glands of nurse bees. The nurse bees (young bees from three days up to about two weeks old) feed royal jelly directly to the queen. They also feed a continuous diet of royal jelly to larvae they want to raise as queens. Some royal jelly is fed as well to larvae that will develop into workers, but in lower quantities.
Beeswax
Beeswax is secreted from wax glands located on the ventral abdominal segments of bees, with peak production taking place when the bees are roughly one to two weeks old. Bees produce the wax by metabolozing honey, which must be present in adequate quantities or the bees will be unable to produce wax.
Beeswax is not a simple substance, but a complex mixture of organic compounds known as esters. An ester is a combinaton of a fatty acid and an alcohol. Beeswax contains the esters of a number of "higher" alcohols, that is, alcohols that have molecules heavier than wood (methyl) alcohol or drinking (ethyl) alcohol.
Beeswax melts at 143.6 - 147.2 degrees F (62 - 64 degrees C). Beeswax is highly flammable and should never be melted over an open flame or directly on a hot plate. Always use a double-boiler arrangement, with the beeswax in a separate container placed in or over a pan of boiling water.
Harvesting Honey From A Home Hive.