Honey Bee Contributions Not Limited to Honey, Propolis, Royal Jelly

Perspectives of Multi-Modal Contribution of Honeybee Resources to Our Life
Entomological Research, Volume 38 Issue s1, Pages S15 - S21

The European honeybee, Apis mellifera, has been introduced to all continents and their products like honey, propolis, royal jelly and beeswax are well known. However, its contribution is not restricted to such direct products but extends into a much wider area.

For example, the economic value of seed production by pollination exceeds the above-mentioned bee products. The application of F1 hybrid is increased to as much as 70% of commercial crops and flowers in Japan and honeybees are important pollinators in the F1 seed production. Incorporation into the large-scale biodiesel fuel production system by culturing rape and sunflower seeds etc. is relied on because it is good to construct possible zero-emission systems that reduce carbon dioxide and increase the rich by-products like honey and royal jelly.

Bees' higher brain function and sophisticated social system of the colony opens new perspectives as a model system. Their individual ability to recognize even abstract concepts is comparable to that of higher primates. Rats or mice have no such ability. High performance learning ability of bees associated with proboscis extension reflex can be used to detect drugs at the airport. Function of the colony, on the other hand, is an excellent model for social physiology or a self-organization system.

After the whole genome of A. mellifera was read in 2006 by the world consortium, consisting of more than 90 institutions from all over the world, many molecular biologists are coming into bee world. Nobody has yet succeeded in the challenge to make transgenic honeybee, so far, because of the difficulty in controlling the reproductive system headed by the queen. However, if someone succeeded in a breakthrough we will have stingless honeybees and a disease-resistant strain in the future.

Consumers Need to Understand Honey Better

Honey Isn't All Sweetness, Experts Warn
By Andrew Schneider, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (USA), 12/30/2008

Apiculturists, those who study or raise bees and collect honey, worry that the public is sweetly ignorant when it comes to the buzzing insects and their product.

Michael Burgett, a leading international bee wizard from Oregon State University, says the first thing that Americans need to understand is the role that honeybees play in pollinating this country's agriculture.

"You can thank the bee industry for about one-third of all the food you eat and nationally that's between $15 billion and $18 billion worth of food products," the professor emeritus says. "That's the prime reason we want a healthy bee population."

But Burgett, considered a talented curmudgeon by many in the field, doesn't completely agree with others that the total agricultural world as we know it will disappear without bees…

As for honey, Jack White, the USDA's first real expert on the subject, defined the sweet brew in his 1980 book as "essentially a highly concentrated water solution of two sugars, dextrose and levulose, with small amounts of at least 22 other more complex sugars."

He added, "The principal physical characteristics and behavior of honey are due to its sugars, but the minor constituents -- such as flavoring materials, pigments, acids, and minerals -- are largely responsible for the differences among individual honey types."

The flavors of honey are varied and to the purists, as complex and individual as wine. But do consumers looking at the score or more of amber-filled bears, jars, bottle and jugs crowded on the store shelf understand what they're looking at?

Many of those who produce or sell honey don't believe consumers really understand what they're buying.

Bruce Wolk, director of marketing for the National Honey Board, said he's concerned that more than a third of "people who use honey every single day believe that something is added to a bottle of honey, beside honey, and a large percentage . . . have no idea what's inside the bottle."

Gary Grigg, the president of Silverbow Honey in Moses Lake, provides honey for many large grocery and chain stores. He also said he doesn't believe most of the consumers know what they're buying…

Colony Collapse May Cause 60% of U.S. Bee Losses, Study Says

By Alan Bjerga

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Three-fifths of U.S. honeybee deaths may be the result of Colony Collapse Disorder, the malady of unknown cause that’s devastated hives since at least 2006, according to a study.

U.S. beekeepers lost about 36 percent of their hives between September 2007 and March, and in 60 percent of those cases, the hives were found without any bees inside, according to the study being released today by PLoS One, an online publisher of scientific research papers. Bee disappearance is a telltale sign of CCD, which may disorient bees and cause them to flee their hives before dropping dead.

The findings show how the disease is devastating U.S. beekeepers, forcing them into expensive hive replenishment, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an author of the study and president of the Apiary Inspectors of America, which tracks honeybee health. Left unchecked, CCD may force some beekeepers out of business and harm production of crops from almonds to zucchini, he said…

Antibiotic Use May Harm Honey's Reputation as Miracle Drug

Honey Laundering: Antibiotic Use Could Taint Reputation as a Miracle Drug
By Andrew Schneider, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (USA), 12/29/2008

The United States imports most of its honey and for years China was the biggest supplier.

But in 1997, a contagious bacterial epidemic raced through hundreds of thousands of Chinese hives, infecting bee larvae and slashing the country's honey production by two-thirds.

Chinese beekeepers had two choices: They could destroy infected hives or apply antibiotics. They chose to do the latter.

That was a mistake, said Michael Burkett, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University and an internationally known authority on bees and honey.

"You hear about people shooting themselves in the foot? Well, the Chinese honey-sellers shot themselves in the head," he said.

The Chinese opted to use chloramphenicol, an inexpensive, broad-spectrum antibiotic that's so toxic it's used to treat only life-threatening infections in humans -- and then only when other alternatives have been exhausted.

"That's on the big no-no list," Burkett said. "In the U.S., Canada and the European Union, chloramphenicol is on everyone's zero-tolerance list."

Now, 11 years later, some of the honey buyers who take the trouble to test for it still find the banned antibiotic in some of their imported honey…

As the world's oldest sweetener, the amber syrup has been heralded by grandmothers, nannies, nurses, tribal medicine men and physicians around the globe.

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, prescribed honey for its nutritional and pharmaceutical value.

The index of medical and scientific journals at the National Medical Library in Bethesda, Md., lists hundreds of studies exploring honey's value in treating, controlling or preventing diabetes, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, stress, skin conditions, sexual problems and scores of other maladies.

Honey makes a natural antibacterial agent, in part because of its high sugar content and acidity, and many Third World countries still use it to treat burns and wounds.

See: Honey laundering: A Sticky Trail of Intrigue and Crime

New Method Used to Extract Propolis Components

Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Selectivity to Fractionate Phenolic Compounds from the Dry Ethanolic Extract of Propolis
Journal of Food Process Engineering, Published Online: 24 Dec 2008

Abstract: The global yield and composition of extracts obtained by supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) extraction from a dry ethanolic extract of propolis were measured in order to determine the possibility of using SC-CO2 to fractionate components of interest present in these extracts…

Practical Applications: Supercritical fluid extraction is an interesting process for the production of natural extracts because it is a clean process, and extractions using carbon dioxide (CO2) as the solvent have been gaining attention in recent years. This study presented important aspects with respect to the fractionation of a dry ethanolic extract of propolis using supercritical carbon dioxide, and it is important to explore the potential applications of propolis extracts and the biological properties of its fractions in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, such as in dental hygiene products, wound healing creams and antibacterial soaps.

See: Extraction of Pollen Lipids by SFE-CO2

Portuguese Apitherapist to Live on Diet of Bee Products

Beginning in January, Portuguese apitherapist Antonio Couto will seek to live exclusively on a diet of bee hive products. Apitherapy News asked Mr. Couto about his experiment. He will track the progress of his dietary experiment online.

Q: Could you tell us a little about yourself?
A: My name is Antonio Couto, I am 46-years-old, Portuguese, live in Lisbon, where I have an apitherapy office.

Q: Why did you choose to undertake this experiment?
A: First of all because I know that way is possible to keep our body in balance (nutritionally and physically) and also because I want to know in my case how far I can go.

Q: What bee products will you consume and in what form?
A: I will take the most types of bee products possible, like honey, fresh frozen pollen, bee bread, fresh royal jelly, raw propolis, wax comb with honey, bee larvae, drone larvae and dead bees mix with honey (this way I will take some bee venom too).

Q: What about water?
A: Of course I will take water if my body asks for it. Honey already has a lot of water.

Q: What are the risks involved, if any?
A: I think that if the person is healthy there are no risk.

Q: How long will the experiment last?
A: I will start in the beginning of January 2009 and it will last for an undetermined time.

Q: Will you be under a doctor's supervision?
A: Yes, my family doctor will supervise me all the time with blood and other tests.

Q: Will scientific data be collected throughout the experiment?
A: I really hope so. All this data will be available on my web site later.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish with this experiment?
A: I hope this experiment can help others to understand and be more confident about taking bee products. Some of my patients, when I tell them to take bee products, ask me if will be not too much or if it's safe to take so many bee products at the same time.

Q: When will you start and how may readers monitor your progress?
A: I will start on January and I will try to put as much recent data as I can on my web site (www.beefine.com)

Note: Bee product producers who wish to add their products to Mr. Couto’s diet may send them to him at:

Antonio Couto
Calcada Ribeiro Santos, 37 - 1
1200-789 Lisbon
Portugal

E-Mail: beefine@netcabo.pt

Traces of Tetracycline Found in 2 of 30 Chinese Propolis Samples

Multiresidue Determination of Tetracycline Antibiotics in Propolis by Using HPLC-UV Detection with Ultrasonic-Assisted Extraction and Two-Step Solid Phase Extraction
Food Chemistry, Article in Press

An analytical method in propolis was developed and validated for the determination of four tetracyclines (TCs) by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for the first time…

The recoveries of the 4 TCs for propolis samples spiked with 100-500 ng·g-1 were in the range of 61.9-88.5 % and the R.S.Ds were between 4.80 and 13.2 %. Traces of tetracycline were found in two out of thirty analyzed real samples.

200+ Compounds Identified in Bee Bread

Gas Chromatographic-Mass Spectrometric Investigation of the Chemical Composition of Beebread
Food Chemistry, Article in Press

Beebread consumption has a very long tradition; however, its composition and bioactive properties have not been studied thoroughly up to now. This study is expected to expand the knowledge of chemical composition of this bee product as a natural remedy and functional food ingredient.

With the help of successive extraction with organic solvents of different polarity, more than 200 compounds were extracted from five samples of beebread and then identified by GC-MS method. The content of some phenol compounds (p-coumaric acid, kaempherol, isorhamnetin) with antioxidant properties has been determined quantitatively. Different content of free aminoacids have been detected in the analyzed samples, which is assumed to be caused by Maillard reaction between aminoacids and carbohydrates.

Vietnamese Bees Believed to Have Medicinal Qualities

Bee – Have!

VietNamNet Bridge - The highly poisonous earth bees in Thanh Hoa province are believed by many to have strong medicinal qualities.

On my way to Sam Son beach in Thanh Hoa province, we make an unscheduled stop at a roadside restaurant. My travelling companion is intrigued by a sign that reads “ruou ong dat”, a kind of rice liquor that is made from some kind of bee. On shelves inside we can see the insects in glass bottles with no labels. Nguyen Hoa, the restaurant owner, appears to tell us that this alcohol is very good for one’s health, most especially your libido.

According to Hoa this kind of bee is considered to be a cure-all by some. You can use bee-products to treat a fever, clear up pimples, clean a wound and even “placate a fit of epilepsy”. Whether the bees’ medicinal power is retained after soaking in a jar of alcohol is not known but Hoa is more interested in sales. “Tourists like this alcohol and often buy a few bottles,” says Hoa happily.

This species of bee is called ong dat (Earth bees) as each colony lives in a large hive made from mud…

Rhododendron Honey Intoxication Causes Heart Block

The Honey Man — Second Degree Heart Block after Honey Intoxication
International Journal of Cardiology, Published Online 19 December 2008

In October 2007, a 70-year-old Turkish patient presented to the emergency department of a Viennese state hospital with syncope. The electrocardiogram showed a second degree heart block type Wenckebach with intermittent 2:1 conduction and preterminal negative T waves. There was no biochemical evidence of an acute ischemic cardiac event or any electrolyte imbalance. A coronary angiogram showed no evidence for coronary artery disease.

During the first day of hospital admission, a jar of homemade honey from the Black Sea region of Turkey is brought to the hospital by relatives of the patient. A commonly used household remedy in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey, “bitter honey” or “mad honey” contains grayanotoxin from the nectar of Rhododendron luteum and Rhododendron ponticum.

This is the first documented case of honey poisoning in the European Union where structural and ischemic causes have been excluded as possible reasons for the temporary AV-block. This case serves as a poignant reminder that physicians must demonstrate awareness of the cultural, social, and in this case toxicological, particularities of patients within immigrant populations.

Honey Shows Higher Antioxidant Activity Than Refined Sugar

Total Antioxidant Content of Alternatives to Refined Sugar
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 109, Issue 1, Pages 64-71 (January 2009)

Background: Oxidative damage is implicated in the etiology of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other degenerative disorders. Recent nutritional research has focused on the antioxidant potential of foods, while current dietary recommendations are to increase the intake of antioxidant-rich foods rather than supplement specific nutrients. Many alternatives to refined sugar are available, including raw cane sugar, plant saps/syrups (eg, maple syrup, agave nectar), molasses, honey, and fruit sugars (eg, date sugar). Unrefined sweeteners were hypothesized to contain higher levels of antioxidants, similar to the contrast between whole and refined grain products.

Objective: To compare the total antioxidant content of natural sweeteners as alternatives to refined sugar.

Design: The ferric-reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) assay was used to estimate total antioxidant capacity. Major brands of 12 types of sweeteners as well as refined white sugar and corn syrup were sampled from retail outlets in the United States.

Results: Substantial differences in total antioxidant content of different sweeteners were found. Refined sugar, corn syrup, and agave nectar contained minimal antioxidant activity (<0.01 mmol FRAP/100 g); raw cane sugar had a higher FRAP (0.1 mmol/100 g). Dark and blackstrap molasses had the highest FRAP (4.6 to 4.9 mmol/100 g), while maple syrup, brown sugar, and honey showed intermediate antioxidant capacity (0.2 to 0.7 mmol FRAP/100 g). Based on an average intake of 130 g/day refined sugars and the antioxidant activity measured in typical diets, substituting alternative sweeteners could increase antioxidant intake an average of 2.6 mmol/day, similar to the amount found in a serving of berries or nuts.

Conclusion: Many readily available alternatives to refined sugar offer the potential benefit of antioxidant activity.

Honey Bees On Cocaine Dance More

Science Daily, 12/23/2008

In a study that challenges current ideas about the insect brain, researchers have found that honey bees on cocaine tend to exaggerate.

Normally, foraging honey bees alert their comrades to potential food sources only when they've found high quality nectar or pollen, and only when the hive is in need. They do this by performing a dance, called a "round" or "waggle" dance, on a specialized "dance floor" in the hive. The dance gives specific instructions that help the other bees find the food.

Foraging honey bees on cocaine are more likely to dance, regardless of the quality of the food they've found or the status of the hive, the authors of the study report.

The findings, detailed this month in the Journal of Experimental Biology, shed new light on the famous honey bee dance language, said University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson, who led the study. The research also supports the idea that in certain circumstances, honey bees, like humans, are motivated by feelings of reward.

Flying Honeybees Reduce Destruction By Caterpillars

Honeybee Buzz Attenuates Plant Damage By Caterpillars
Current Biology, Volume 18, Issue 24, R1125-R1126, 23 December 2008

In recent years, it has become evident that indirect interactions between members of food webs can significantly influence ecosystem functions. For example, predators affect prey populations through either consumption (density-mediated interactions) or, equally important, by changing prey behavior or phenotype (trait-mediated interactions).

Nonconsumptive effects of predators on prey may alter plant species diversity and plant performance. Pollination and herbivory are the most important ecological and evolutionary relationships between plants and insects. Honeybees are dominant as pollinators while caterpillars are very efficient plant despoilers. Despite the long and intense study of honeybees, however, indirect effects of this pollinator on other food web members have hardly been assessed.

Here we report on a newly discovered link that connects these two ecological functions: honeybees merely flying around vegetation significantly reduce plant destruction by caterpillars.

Alternative Anti-Bacterial Measurement of Manuka Almost Completed

Legal Action Looms in Honey Dispute
Radio New Zealand, 12/22/2008

The honey company Watson & Son will press ahead with legal action against the Active Manuka Honey Association, despite losing an appeal for an interim injunction.

The association has threatened to terminate the company's licence to use Unique Manuka Factor or UMF trademarks on its products and to order a product recall.

The dispute arose when tests done on some of Watson & Son's manuka honey products in the UK showed they did not have the anti-bacterial strength claimed on the label…

In the meantime, Watson & Son says it's resigned from the association. It has almost completed developing an alternative standard for anti-bacterial measurement in manuka honey, which it expects to be recognised internationally.

Propolis Component Protects Against Oxidative Stress

Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester Modulates Methotrexate-Induced Oxidative Stress in Testes of Rat
Human & Experimental Toxicology, Vol. 27, No. 7, 547-552 (2008)

The aim of this study was to investigate the possible protective role of caffeic acid phenethyl ester on testicular toxicity of methotrexate in rats…

In the tissue, the level of lipid peroxidation as malondialdehyde and activities of superoxide dismutase were higher in the methotrexate group than in the control group. Lipid peroxidation levels and superoxide dismutase activities were decreased in caffeic acid phenethyl ester + methotrexate group compared with methotrexate group. The activities of catalase in the methotrexate group decreased insignificantly although its activities were significantly increased by caffeic acid phenethyl ester administration. The activity of glutathione peroxidase did not change in the groups. There was significant difference in body weight between control and methotrexate-induced groups.

In conclusion, the administration of methotrexate causes elevation of oxidative stress although treatment with caffeic acid phenethyl ester has protective effects on the oxidative stress in testes.