The Benevolent Bee

Book excerpt: A beekeeper and herbalist shares how you can use six products of the beehive: honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, beeswax, and bee venom. Not all new beekeepers realize that a honeybee hive produces a lot more than just honey. While your hard-working ladies will produce delicious honey, the hive as a whole also produces pollen, propolis, royal jelly, beeswax, and bee venom; all very useful things for humans, if we know how to use them. The Benevolent Bee describes how and why the bees make these products, how they’ve been used by humans throughout the ages, and how beekeepers can harvest the products. It also presents simple do-it yourself recipes for using the products in health and wellness, body care, nutrition, and craft. You'll learn how to make salves for burns and a cough syrup from raw honey; how to make a tincture, an infused oil, and a mouthwash from propolis, the anti-bacterial “bee glue” that lines the inside of the hive; and much more. Get crafting now, it’s all already in your hive!