Feel the buzz: how bees help our health

The busy bee provides power-packed products for the modern medicine cabinet. By Annabel Saladino

 

The buzzing of bees is synonymous with summer and serves as a gentle reminder of the delicate workings of life. Busying away in our gardens and countryside, bees provide us with much to be grateful for. "Many plants depend on bees for pollination and couldn't exist without them," says Chris Deaves of the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA). "Bees create the biodiversity that we see all around us."

 

A third of the food we put in our mouths comes either directly or indirectly from bees, he says. "Without bees, we would struggle to get two or three portions of different fruit or vegetables a day into our diet, let alone five."

 

But as well as the rich variety of healthy foods they help create for us, bees appear to be bountiful from a medicinal point of view, too. For thousands of years, bee products have been used to treat a range of ills, and there's a growing hive of evidence as to why this apitherapy or ‘bee medicine' is still being used today.

 

Honey

The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all used honey to treat wounds and diseases of the gut, says Peter Molan, a professor in biological sciences and director of the Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. "In fact, the use of honey to treat infected wounds was common practice in hospitals until antibiotics came into use in the 1940s," he says. "Now that some bacteria are proving a match for modern antibiotics, doctors are looking at honey anew."

 

Honeys vary in taste and colour depending on which plants the bees have visited. But all honey is now known to have anti-bacterial properties, because of an enzyme in it that produces hydrogen peroxide. "The anti-bacterial component is in the honey to preserve it for the bees, but it is also what makes it medicinally useful for humans," Chris Deaves says.

 

Different honeys have varying degrees of anti-bacterial strength. Professor Molan and his team have investigated several types and discovered variances in anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory action of "about one hundred-fold". Manuka honey, made by bees visiting the New Zealand manuka tree, has been found to have additional anti-bacterial activity that sets it apart from other honeys.

 

"The latest theory is that this might be due to the presence of methylglyoxal, a chemical produced by manuka plants," says Dr Amanda Tonks, lecturer in medical microbiology at Cardiff University. Manuka honey is used today to treat wounds, burns and skin ulcers. "My opinion is that it is more effective than any other wound treatment," Professor Molan says. "In a large number  of cases  it has been used on wounds that have failed to heal with anything available in modern medicine."

 

The big excitement stems from its apparent ability to take on the hospital superbugs. "A number of medical papers have shown it can be used to eradicate MRSA from colonised wounds," says Dr Rose Cooper, professor of microbiology at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff.

 

Manuka honey specifically prepared for medical use is available on prescription for the treatment of wounds, though Dr Tonks points out that a recent systematic review found that the evidence gathered so far is not compelling enough to recommend treatment with honey for
all wound types. She adds that manuka honey is not the only kind that has been found to inhibit MRSA. But though our native honeys have quite high levels of anti-bacterial action, the amounts change year by year.

 

Other research is starting to back up the use of honey for the treatment of colds. "It is too early to say if the anti-viral activity we find in honey in lab tests may be of use clinically in treating coughs and colds," Professor Molan says. "But the anti-inflammatory activity of honey will be of help, especially for sore throats." Research published in the Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, meanwhile, found buckwheat honey to be as effective in reducing the severity and frequency of a night-time cough as an ingredient found in various over-the-counter cough medicines. (Honey should not be given to children under one year, however, because of the risk of botulism.)

 

Honey is also thought to be useful in helping to ease digestive problems. A study of children admitted to hospital with gastroenteritis, published in the British Medical Journal, found that those treated with honey rather than glucose had a significant reduction in the duration of their diarrhoea. More dramatically, Professor Molan says that manuka honey has the power to kill off Helicobacter pylori - the bug that causes stomach ulcers.

 

Propolis

Also known as ‘Russian penicillin' or ‘bee glue', propolis* is a resin-like substance that bees collect from trees and chew into a resinous substance to seal cracks in their hives. "It's strongly antiseptic, because its purpose is to stop disease getting into trees," Chris Deaves explains. Soluble in alcohol, propolis is used as a treatment for sore throats but it is also useful in dentistry. Dr Philip Wander (www.wanderdental.co.uk), chairman of the British Homeopathic Dental Association, is passionate about it. "Propolis is an anti-infective and anti-inflammatory," he says. "It was widely used in Eastern Europe when they didn't have access to antibiotics. As a dentist, I mainly use propolis for mouth ulcers and to accelerate healing after a tooth extraction."

 

Royal jelly

Royal jelly is a milky, protein-rich food secreted from the mouths of bees. It is the food upon which the queen bee is fed, which is why it tends to be associated with youth-preserving powers. "A bee fed with pollen in summer will live for about six weeks, but a queen, who is fed purely on royal jelly, can live for up to five years," says Dr Theodore Cherbuliez, a physician and vice-president of the American Apitherapy Association. "It is an elixir of life."

 

Rich in vitamins and minerals, royal jelly is used in traditional Chinese medicines to treat a range of ills, including fatigue, depression, insomnia and a weak immune system. Research published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture showed that royal jelly also appeared to reduce the spread of cancer cells in mice. But others are sceptical as to the extent of its powers. "It's possible you might get a similar benefit from it as from taking a vitamin and mineral supplement," Chris Deaves says, "but it's not particularly concentrated for humans."

 

Wax lyrical

Keep lips soft with a beeswax and honey lip balm. Apples & Pears Apiaries, a small beekeeping business, combines the wax that bees use to seal the honeycomb with honey and plant extracts in its nourishing balms, £9.95 each (www.apples-and-pears.com).

 

Bee venom

Hippocrates was said to use bee stings to soothe arthritic pain, and bee venom is still used by apitherapists to treat rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis (MS). According to Dr Cherbuliez, some components of bee venom are "extremely anti-inflammatory, one hundred times more powerful than cortisone". The medical use of bee stings is contentious, however, because of the risk of severe reactions, such as anaphylactic shock­, and the lack of large-scale clinical trials.

 

Researchers at Georgetown University in Washington reported that three out of five patients with MS who were treated with bee venom showed signs of improvement. The results were described as "encouraging", but the therapy can't be recommended until further research has been carried out.

 

But Dr Cherbuliez remains convinced of its worth. In his 20 years of using bee venom, he says: "I have not seen a single patient with MS who had no response to the therapy." One thing is for sure - bees have gathered a great deal of wisdom from this world, and we have much to learn from them.

 

For information on beekeeping or advice on making your garden more bee-friendly, contact the British Beekeepers' Association on 02476 696679; www.britishbee.org.uk.

 

 

Bee friendly

Britain's honeybees are facing a serious threat from the virus-
spreading Varroa destructor mite, which Chris Deaves from the BBKA says, "could result in the end of the honeybee in the UK within 10 years". Help make life easier for honeybees by providing them with a variety of forage: they love blackberry and ivy, tall plants such as hollyhocks and larkspur, and flowering herbs. Better still, become a beekeeper. "It is only the protective actions of beekeepers that are keeping the honey bee alive in the UK," Chris Deaves says. Becoming a beekeeper is a great way to de-stress: "The sound of the humming is very calming," he adds.

 

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