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Believe it or not, the sweetest honey that is regarded as “Superfood” or the ultimate healthy food nowadays. Just a few decades ago, it was viewed by nutritionists as nothing more than simple syrup. Until the 1990s, many benefits of honey began to be discovered. Which is rich in enzymes, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
Even bees are known to use honey as a medicine. especially “Honey bee” (Honey bee), which is a bee in the genus Apis and is the only bee species that can produce enough honey commercially. They choose to take advantage of a chemical in plants known as Phytochemicals that act differently Depends on what kind of flowers the honey is collected from.
May Berenbaum, an entomologist at the University of Illinois. U.S. Urbana-Champagne Campus Says Nectar Bees Have Health Benefits from eating the various types of honey it collects They live longer Increased immunity to infection and cold weather resistance. When receiving nectar and pollen from various flowers
However, environmental problems from the agricultural industry today which focuses on growing only one type of money-making plant in the local area This gave the honey bee fewer options to seek food and make its own medicines.
Hundreds of millions of years of evolution gave birth to nectar bees.
Bees separated their evolutionary line from wasps regarding 120 million years ago. This is the era when many flowers were born and spread widely around the world.
In addition, the behavior of bees from feeding insects together as food for the larvae Come to feed the pollen instead. This allowed the bees to continue to evolve into more than 20,000 different species today.
Bees begin to produce and collect honey. After learning to use the nectar of flowers to mix into the pollen to form a ball. which will be easier to carry back to the nest Soon following, bees began to take the next step in evolution. by the glands that secrete wax out To help build a nest that can store nectar, which is a liquid. separated from the solid pollen
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Christina Grosinger, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University, said: “Wax is a highly resilient building material. A honeycomb consists of many hexagonal shapes. This is the most efficient engineering design for containment because they are so close together.”
The honeycomb appearance also has another advantage: the tiny hexagonal cells increase the surface area. This allows the moisture to evaporate quickly and slows the growth of microorganisms. This allows the honey to be preserved for a long time.
When bees suck nectar from flowers The nectar does not reach the stomach and immediately becomes food for the bees. But will be separated and stored in a special stomach. Mix and match with many beneficial enzymes. For example, the enzyme invertase, which breaks the sucrose molecule in half, immediately breaks down into glucose and fructose. This enzyme comes from microorganisms in the bee’s nectar storage stomach.
When returning to the hive, the honey bees will help collect the nectar. By passing it on “mouth-to-mouth”, the water is separated from the honey more. More enzymes and microbial growth inhibitors from each bee are mixed in. Some enzymes, for example glucose oxidase, neutralize honey and produce disinfectant hydrogen peroxide. But there will be another enzyme that helps to control the production of disinfectants that are too toxic and toxic.
sweet as medicine
Research published in the journal A 2014 study published in the “Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology” found that honey bees are known to “methods” to treat their ailments. By choosing to eat honey that comes from a variety of flowers to suit the symptoms of the disease.
There were experiments on nectar bees who were sick with fungal and bacterial infections. Choose to eat freely from 4 types of honey. As a result, bees choose sunflower nectar the most. This type of honey has properties as a natural antibiotic that is highly effective.
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Research published in 2017 in the journal Insects found that lab bees fed the compound nectar Phytochemicals from two plants These include p-Coumaric acid and the antioxidant Quercetin, which is highly resistant to pesticides. And they live longer than bees that do not receive the compound as food.
In addition, other research has found the benefits of the substance. Phytochemicals many kinds of plants It is mixed with high amounts of honey, such as abscisic acid, which strengthens the immune system of bees. make the wound heal faster And help the bees to withstand the cold weather well. Thymol compounds from the thyme tree, a medicinal plant and spice It helps treat fungal bees by halving the number of mold spores.
The chemicals in these beneficial honey Some also help stave off Foulbrood disease, which can make bee larvae sick and dying. Anabasine alkaloids stimulate the activity of genes that produce antimicrobial proteins. including stimulating detoxification and building immunity The plant chemicals in some honey also increase the amount. including the diversity of beneficial microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract of bees This can greatly reduce the severity of parasitic infections.
However, the nectar bees in nature and the bees are kept today. They were affected by the inability to find and collect honey from various flowers. due to the problem of deforestation and the popularity of growing the only money making crops locally. This equates to the bee’s ability to immunize and produce its own medicines. has diminished dramatically
US beekeepers 45% of bees in their hive lost during April. 2020 – Apr 2021 Due to diseases and infections, this is the second worst-case scenario. After starting to collect statistics since 2006
Have expert advice Let the beekeepers choose to leave a variety of honey in the hive. So that bees have a “medicine inventory” for use in emergencies all year round. There should also be a plan to encourage local farmers to grow a variety of crops. or divide some planted areas into forests so that plants with various types of flowers in nature will grow on their own and is a source of resources for the nectar bees to continue to find food and medicine