Propolis: A Natural Antibiotic, Part 1

Susan Smith Jones, an author and lecturer on exercise and health, states in her book, The Main Ingredients: Positive Thinking, Exercise and Diet, that scientists around the world are rediscovering a natural antibiotic that has been effective for 40 million years.

A natural antibiotic? For 40 million years?

Yes, its name is propolis – and 40 million years is the length of time that bees have been using it to ensure the cleanliness of the hive or tree hollow where the colony makes its home.

Some call propolis a “miracle of nature.”  How else, they say, could 50,000 bees, crawling over each other, live healthily in a small hive without some form of protection against bacteria and disease?

Bee propolis is a positive alternative to antibiotics because of its healing action without the side effects of drugs.  It has also caught the attention of many because of the widespread fear about the ever-increasing number of bacteria which are becoming resistant to existing antibiotics.

Although man “harvests” propolis from the beehive, bees gather it from the buds of certain trees and herbaceous plants.  As the bees find it, propolis is a resinous juice or sap which the trees use themselves to fight infection, disease and to heal cuts.

Altogether, propolis contains approximately 55 percent resins and balms, 30 percent wax, 10 percent etheric oils and 5 percent pollen.  Further analysis shows bee propolis to be rich in flavonoids, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients.

The natural antibiotic from trees is taken back to the hive and placed in every comb and corner to protect the bees – especially the 10,000 or so baby bees – from any kind of bacterial infection.

It is easy to see why some scientists feel that a beehive is more sterile than a modern hospital.  Perhaps the following example will make this more lucid.

If an alien body or pest such as a lizard or field mouse makes its way into the hive, it will be stung to death and killed by injecting venom.  The alien body is then wrapped in a propolis shroud and covered with a wax layer.  Decomposition and tissue decay do not occur to this embalmed body for five or six years.