Benefits of Buzz (Slideshow)

Daily Lobo (USA), 10/2/2008

…Queen bees are fed only royal jelly, which is thought to extend people's lifespans, she said. The white jelly is excreted from a gland near the bees' mouths.

"The queen lives a lot longer than the workers," she said. "The workers in the summer live about six weeks. I think the oldest queen on record is 11 years old. I used to work with this Yemeni beekeeper. And we'd go out, and if we found any queen cells, he would take the whole cell and just eat it - the larva and all the royal jelly. He was like, 'It gets me high.' It's a huge dose of energy."

Mahoney built her five hives from scratch, and her only protection is a veil when collecting the honey. She has about 250,000 bees.

"It's a very worthwhile thing to be doing," she said. "It helps the world, and it's just such an organic experience. And almost all the products from the beehive are usable, like beeswax, propolis, pollen, honey. They're one of the only insects that make food for humans."

And honey never goes bad, though it may crystallize, which is just a more stable form of it, she said. Honey made from bees kept by the Egyptians is still good today.

"It's like a natural preservative," she said. "It is really good for you. They can't reproduce honey in the lab. There are all kinds of enzymes that nobody knows what they do. It has all sorts of antibacterial and healing properties."…