Harvard’s Robotic Bees Generate High-Tech Buzz

October 7, 2009 (Network World) Harvard University researchers recently got a $10 million grant to create a colony of flying robotic bees, or RoboBees to among other things, spur innovation in ultra-low-power computing and electronic “smart” sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines.

The five-year, National Science Foundation-funded RoboBee project could lead to a better understanding of how to artificially mimic the unique collective behavior and intelligence of a bee colony; foster novel methods for designing and building an electronic surrogate nervous system able to deftly sense and adapt to changing environments; and advance work on the construction of small-scale flying mechanical devices, according to the Harvard RoboBee Web site.

The RoboBee scientists will create robotic bees that fly autonomously and coordinate activities amongst themselves and the hive, much like real bees. They anticipate the devices will open up a wide range of discoveries and practical innovations, advancing fields ranging from entomology and developmental biology to amorphous computing and electrical engineering, the researchers stated…

Discover the Health Benefits of Bee Pollen

By Elizabeth Walling, 10/5/2009

(NaturalNews) Before our modern age of sterilization and sanitation, traditional medicine was based on healing herbal and food remedies that may seem eccentric by our "civilized" standards. And while substances like bee pollen were highly prized at one time, today the idea may seem quite bizarre at first glance. Bee pollen, however, is one of nature's best kept secrets.

Beekeepers of old knew this, and considered honey rich in pollen to be a source of health and longevity. A prime example is the beekeepers native to the Caucasus Mountains that stretch between the Black and Caspian Seas. These people, many of whom lived on a diet rich in honey filled with bee pollen, exhibited fine health and often lived well over 100 years old.

Bees package their pollen with nectar and enzymes that help it develop into a powerful superfood. In fact, bee pollen contains thousands of enzymes and co-enzymes which are necessary for true vitality. Bee pollen also contains 22 amino acids, including the eight essential ones. It is, in essence, a complete protein. You'll also find dozens of vitamins and minerals in bee pollen, as well as natural hormones and important fatty acids.

While science has yet to thoroughly examine bee pollen for its benefits, many people have successfully used it to treat a variety of ailments, including:

- Asthma
- Indigestion, diarrhea, constipation and other digestive issues
- Anemia
- Low energy and fatigue
- Depression
- Skin conditions such as acne
- Sexual problems
- Hemorrhoids
- Obesity
- Rheumatism and arthritis

Bee pollen is also useful for improving the health of the heart, prostate, immune system and nervous system.

One of bee pollen's many intriguing benefits is its ability to improve allergies. It seems counterproductive to fight pollen allergies with pollen, but bee pollen seems to have an immunizing effect against these reactions. If you use bee pollen to treat allergies, proceed with care and start with only two or three granules per day. Slowly increase dosage as long as there is no reaction. However, those with a history of anaphylactic reactions should avoid bee pollen...

Pure Honey Candy Introduced

Honibe Introduces Honey Delights -- the World's First 100% Pure Honey Candy -- the Best Tasting Candy in the World

Montague, PE (PRWEB) October 6, 2009 -- Island Abbey Foods Ltd., specialty food producer and creator of the award winning Honey Drop - the world's first alternative to the sugar cube, today introduced the world's first 100% pure honey candy: Honey Delights…

New Medicinal Manuka Honey Standard Announced

Manuka Honey’s Medical Marvels Measured in Gold
Waikato University, 10/5/2009

The scientist who discovered the original manuka honey activity has put his name to a new standard that guarantees consumers are getting the genuine article.

The surging global demand for the proven health values of New Zealand manuka honey is creating a major ethical concern in the way it is being marketed to consumers, says Professor Molan MBE, from the University of Waikato’s Honey Research Unit.

Prof Molan has now put his name to the Molan Gold Standard™, the new standard that defines manuka honeys with the unique bioactivities identified in his research.

Manuka is now one of the world’s great health honeys and one of the great food icons of New Zealand. This year parallel research by science teams in both the UK and Australia confirmed New Zealand’s manuka honey to be a powerful antibiotic against drug-resistant super-bugs.

However, care is needed in marketing to consumers, Prof Molan says. “Not all manuka honeys have true medicinal bioactivity beyond the range that’s normal of all honeys, and the industry is exposed if it does not make the distinction clear for consumers,” he says. “Several manuka honeys called ‘active’ in combination with a number have little or none of the non-peroxide activity that is the key to its distinctive antibacterial qualities.”

Prof Molan, who is now regarded as the world’s foremost authority on medical honeys, is concerned non medical-grade manuka honeys could be used for medicinal purposes by unknowing consumers. Active manuka honey can sell for about $65 for a 250gm jar in countries such as the UK.

“The more powerful the research results proving manuka honeys health benefits, the more important it is for consumers to purchase the correct honey,” Prof Molan says.

Because of this uncertainty, the University of Waikato is providing manuka honey marketers with the new international standard allowing consumers to readily recognise authenticated medicinal honeys. The trademark to represent the new standard has been developed by WaikatoLink, the research commercialisation company of the University of Waikato. It will be on manuka honeys in the UK within weeks and on New Zealand shelves by the end of the year.

Fraser Smith, a WaikatoLink Commercial Manager, says the name Molan Gold Standard is instantly linked with the honesty and integrity of Prof Molan – the man whose research made manuka a New Zealand icon…

He says the manuka honeys that meet the Molan Gold Standard have the original bio-activity he discovered (known in research literature as non-peroxide activity). “It’s a bio-activity that is proving to be the most versatile antibiotic available to medicine for combating difficult persistent infections. It has amazing potency against harmful bacteria and yet, surprisingly, it assists in restoring the balance of good bacteria in our bodies,” Prof Molan.

It’s effective against subcutaneous infections, eg acne and sinusitis. “And we are also starting to understand how the bio-activity can work within the body and why it could have a major role to play in digestive health and for its anti-inflammatory properties.”…

Honey Improves Wound Healing

Manuka Honey Improved Wound Healing in Patients with Sloughy Venous Leg Ulcers
Evidence-Based Medicine, 2009;14:148

Design: randomised controlled trial.

Allocation: concealed.*

Blinding: blinded (statistician).*

Study question

Setting: vascular centres, leg ulcer clinics, and acute and community care hospitals.

Patients: 108 patients >18 years of age (mean age 68 y) who had a venous leg ulcer (VLU) <100 cm2 with 50% of the wound bed covered in slough. Exclusion criteria were malignant ulcer, wound infection, presence of a cavity wound, use of antibiotics or oral immunosuppressants, poorly controlled diabetes, pregnancy or lactation, and previous enrolment in the study.

Intervention: Wounds were cleansed with warm tap water and then treated with 5 g/20 cm2 Manuka honey (n = 54), or 3 g/20 cm2 hydrogel therapy (n = 54), weekly for 4 weeks. Use of Allevyn hydrocellular foam as secondary dressings and compression therapy continued throughout the treatment period. Treatment after week 4 was determined by the local investigator.

Outcomes: VLU desloughing at 4 weeks and wound healing at 12 weeks.

Follow-up period: 12 weeks.

Patient follow-up: 100% in intention-to-treat...

Video: Oregon Apitherapy Company to be Featured on National TV

By Arrianee LeBeau, KVAL, 10/4/2009

EUGENE, Ore - GloryBee Foods will be featured on an upcoming episode of "Unwrapped!" on the Food Network cable channel. The episode is called ‘Honey’…

The segment will air on October 5th at 9:00 PM PT, October 06, 2009 at 12:00 AM PT, and October 20, 2009 at 11:30 PM PT.

Video: Forest Honey High in Micronutrients

In Poland, Honey - Again - Grows On Trees
By Bernard Osser Bernard Osser, 10/4/2009

VIDEO

SPALA, Poland (AFP) – Perched in a lofty pine tree a dozen metres (around 30 feet) from the forest floor, Tomasz Dzierzanowski carefully removed a clump of dry grass from a hole in the wood and wafted smoke into a bees' nest.

Using a wooden spatula, he delicately cut out the gleaming slices of honeycomb, and the dark, shining liquid ran down his fingers. After climbing down, he tore off a waxy chunk and tasted the powerfully-flavoured honey.

Dzierzanowski is one of a group of Polish enthusiasts reviving a form of beekeeping stretching back thousands of years but abandoned more than a century ago…

Tree-honey is distinctive -- Dzierzanowski's harvest had a deep-gold colour, an initially smoky taste, and wasn't over-sweet -- and is traditionally eaten mixed with remainders of pollen and chewy wax.

"Forest honey is much better than other kinds because it contains seven times more micronutrients," said Nawrocki.

In addition, it is a delight for organic food fans: the forest nests and the bees' pollen-gathering territory lie far from the fertiliser- and pesticide-strewn fields of agribusiness…

Bees Fight Back Against Colony Collapse Disorder

Some Honey Bees Toss Out Varroa Mites

ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2009) — Honey bees are now fighting back aggressively against Varroa mites, thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) efforts to develop bees with a genetic trait that allows them to more easily find the mites and toss them out of the broodnest…

Bee Venom Boosts Anti-Cancer Drug

Potentiation of Bleomycin Lethality in HeLa and V79 cells by Bee Venom
Arh Hig Rada Toksikol, 2009 Sep;60(3):317-26

This study investigated possible growth-inhibiting effects of bee venom applied alone or in combination with a cytotoxic drug bleomycin on HeLa and V79 cells in vitro based on clone formation, cell counting, and apoptosis.

Melittin, the key component of bee venom, is a potent inhibitor of calmodulin activity, and also a potent inhibitor cell growth and clonogenicity. Intracellular accumulation of melittin correlates with the cytotoxicity of antitumour agents. Previous studies indicated that some calcium antagonists and calmodulin inhibitors enhanced intracellular levels of antitumor agents by inhibiting their outward transport.

In this study, treatment of exponentially growing HeLa and V79 cells with bleomycin caused a dose-dependent decrease in cell survival due to DNA damage. This lethal effect was potentiated by adding a non-lethal dose of the bee venom. By preventing repair of damaged DNA, bee venom inhibited recovery from potentially lethal damage induced by bleomycin in V79 and HeLa cells.

Apoptosis, necrosis, and lysis were presumed as possible mechanisms by which bee venom inhibited growth and clonogenicity of V79 cells. HeLa cells, on the other hand, showed greater resistance to bee venom.

Our findings suggest that bee venom might find a therapeutic use in enhancing cytotoxicity of antitumour agent bleomycin.

Malaysian Medicinal Honey Conference Extends Deadline for Abstract Submission

Dear friends

Due to heavy traffic at our online registration for the 2nd International Conference on Medicinal Uses of Honey; 13-15th January 2009, -- we are now extending the deadlines to submit abstracts and for early registration to 31st October 2009. I was told there are some who are unable to do so due to the congestion --If you encounter registration problems -- you could write to the secretariat: - honey2010@kb.usm.my.

I hope you could extend this email to your friends in your institution and in others. Please also take note, the abstracts of the conference will be published in Journal of ApiProduct and ApiMedical Science while American Medical Journal (AMJ ) has decided to dedicate a special issue for publication of all full articles presented at this conference in a special AMJ issue. AMJ would bear printing and publication cost of all articles. These 2 journals are aware of each others presence in this conference.

On behalf of the organizing committee, I welcome all papers on Honey or/and bee products. As a pathologist, I am amazed at the results of research on honey on a number of diseases. You are welcome to present papers or just sit in and listen to talks which will be given by Who's who in honey research. Check out the programs.

Best wishes,

Professor Dr Nor Hayati Othman
Chairperson

E-Mail: hayati@kb.usm.my

Top Bar Hives Reduce Stress on Bees

New Kind of Beehive Makes for ‘Happy Bees’
By Abigail Curtis, Bangor Daily News, 10/3/2009

TENANTS HARBOR, Maine — When Jan Wirth gets close to the rectangular wooden beehive at Old Woods Farm, the lazy, muted buzzing from the tens of thousands of honeybees inside makes her smile.

“There’s a nice hum,” she said earlier this week. “When they’re happy, the hum is different than when they’re angry.”

And happy bees are exactly what Wirth wants as permanent residents of Old Woods Farm, the conservation neighborhood she’s developing close to the Tenants Harbor village center on a parcel of land that boasts old apple trees, low bush blueberries, meadow grasses, sunflowers and red clover.

Wirth is pretty sure that happy bees also will be healthy bees, and so she has installed a new shape of beehive that was built and is being monitored by a new breed of beekeeper — Christy Hemenway of Bath…

Hemenway is alarmed by many aspects of conventional beekeeping, including the fact that beekeepers give bees a mass-produced wax foundation that ostensibly helps them get started in their box-shaped hives.

“It’s one size fits all,” she said of the foundation. “But it doesn’t really fit any bee — at least, not well.”

That is one stress on honeybees, she stressed. Another is the fact that commercial beekeepers may feed the bees on a sugar water mixture after harvesting the honey.

“It reminds me of a feedlot,” Wirth said. “Then we wonder why the colony’s collapsing.”

Another stressor is the prevalence of chemicals and pesticides in modern agriculture.

“A combination of things that lethal and that interconnected — that sort of thing is not sustainable. It eventually will take something apart,” Hemenway said. “There’s nothing more heartbreaking than to lose your bees.”

A new way

The 49-year-old Hemenway didn’t always have a passion for bees. In 2006, she owned a small business called Gold Star Alpacas and helped a beekeeping friend shear his alpaca. In exchange, he gave her a jar of homemade honey, and Hemenway was stung with bee fever. She took a class in conventional beekeeping and wondered why her bees weren’t thriving.

“I asked in class: What did the bees do before we started giving them wax foundation?” she said. “No one could answer.”

Her curiosity led her to discover beekeepers who were practicing a different method, called top bar. This type of beekeeping doesn’t provide bees a foundation, and they make all their own wax. It’s meant to mimic what occurs in nature, while still allowing beekeepers a practical, safe way to gather honey and tend their swarms.

By August 2007, Hemenway had decided to start a company — Gold Star Honeybees, based in Bath — and had found a new path…

Targeting Cancer with Bee Venom

In Animal Studies, Tiny Composite Spheres Deliver Drug Directly to Tumor Sites; 'It's Like an Injection'
By Peter Loftus, The Wall Street Journal, 9/28/2009

A bee sting can be painful, but its venomous payload might hold promise for a beneficial purpose—fighting cancer.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have used an ingredient of bee venom called melittin to shrink or slow the growth of tumors in mice. Melittin's anti-tumor potential has been known for years, but it hasn't been used as a drug because it also attacks healthy cells, including vital red blood cells.

Now the researchers have found a way, using the burgeoning field of nanotechnology, to pinpoint tumors for attack by melittin while largely shielding healthy cells. They do this by attaching the bee-venom ingredient to nanoparticles, which are ultra-tiny, synthetically manufactured spheres. The resultant product, called nanobees, are injected into the blood stream where they circulate until they reach and attack cancerous tumors. The approach also has the potential to avoid some of the toxic side effects seen in older cancer therapies like chemotherapy.

Nanobees showed promise in a study published this summer in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The study found that nanobees halted tumor growth or shrank tumors in mice with breast and skin cancers, and reduced precancerous lesions. The experiments showed minimal toxicity to healthy cells from the treatment.

"In effect, we've got something that does what a bee does except it's a synthetic particle. It's got a stinger and injector to insert the toxin into a cell," says Samuel Wickline, a professor at Washington University's medical school...

Honey Wound Dressing Not Toxic to Cells

An In Vitro Evaluation of the Cell Toxicity of Honey and Silver Dressings
Journal of Wound Care, Vol. 18, Iss. 9, 10 Sep 2009, pp 383 - 389

Objective: To establish whether honey and silver-impregnated dressings used by wound-healing practitioners are cytotoxic in vitro to human skin keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts.

Method: Human keratinocyte and fibroblast tissue cultures were established in vitro. Untreated cultures served as controls (group I). Small dressing implants of monofloral, medicinal honey (L-Mesitran) (group 2) and nanocrystalline silver (Acticoat) (group 3) were placed in test wells and co-cultured with each of the two cell lines. Morphological changes, including cell toxicity, were assessed using inverted microscopy, trypan blue staining and the Rosdy and Clauss cell toxicity scoring system.

Results: Untreated cultures consisting of both keratinocytes and fibroblasts (group 1) were established in 90% of all cases. In group 2, cultures with honey-impregnated implants, cell proliferation remained present at two and four months. Cell viability remained intact and cell toxicity was not evident at four months after continuous tissue culture. In group 3, marked toxicity was observed with high non-viability staining and cell-scoring counts compared with groups 1 and 2 (p<0.05). This demonstrates that the silver interfered with epidermal cell proliferation and migration, implying that it contains cytotoxic material.

Conclusion: The honey-based product showed excellent cytocompatibility with tissue cell cultures compared with the silver dressing, which demonstrated consistent culture and cell toxicity. Further studies are needed to assess if these comparative in-vitro findings should influence a clinician's choice of wound dressing.

Nectar Testing Guarantees Origin, Purity of Manuka Honey

New Manuka Honey Research Adds Clarity for Consumers
Voxy News Engine, 10/2/2009

Comvita today released scientific findings from a research project of considerable importance for consumers and New Zealand's $100 million Manuka Honey industry.

Comvita's research, conducted in association with the University of Auckland and Hill Laboratories and published this week by Food Chemistry (Elsevier Ltd), is the culmination of a year-long, intense scientific trial investigation of the bioactivity of Manuka Honey.

The research revealed: A clear methodology for differentiating honey types and of guaranteeing the proof of origin and purity of Manuka honey…

Comvita Chief Technical Officer, Dr. Ralf Schlothauer, says using Nectar Testing to trace the bioactive compounds from the nectar to the Manuka Honey on the shelf is a considerable step forward in ensuring the consumer is buying what they believe.

"This is important because bioactive compounds are ultimately from the nectar collected by the bees."…

The real story behind UMF Manuka honey is incredibly complex and rich, Dr. Schlothauer says. He likens it to an unravelling mystery, as this, the first in a series of research papers, confirms…

Phenolic Profile May be Used to Differentiate Honeys

Phenolic Compounds and Methylglyoxal in Some New Zealand Manuka and Kanuka Honeys
Food Chemistry, Article in Press

The principal phenolic compounds and methylglyoxal were analysed in New Zealand Leptospermum scoparium (manuka) and Kunzea ericoides (kanuka) honeys. These honeys shared six phenolic acids as primary components and differentiation was possible as relative proportions varied.

Manuka honey contained an elevated concentration of a trimethoxybenzoic acid and methylglyoxal; and 2-methoxybenzoic acid and methylglyoxal concentrations were linearly correlated in fresh manuka honey.

Kanuka honey contained an elevated concentration of methoxyphenyllactic acid. The concentration of the phenolic components increased with maturation in both honey types; and this profile development, along with a corresponding increase of methylglyoxal concentration, was linear in manuka honey. Nectar analysed from the plant species contained the same phenolic components as the honeys.

These results demonstrated the phenolic profile could be used to differentiate the honey types, heat treatment of honey could be identified, and the presence of these components may contribute to the efficacy of these honeys in therapeutic uses.