#Honey, propolis and royal jelly have been used by humans since ancient times as part of traditional medicine due to the antibacterial, antioxidant, #antiinflammatory and antiviral activity.
The interest in honey products for its #functional properties is growing, especially in young consumers (Zanchini et al. 2022, the British Food Journal), aligned with the growing trend for #natural food and medicine (see The #PhytoNOTE #7: Top-trend natural").
Nutrition & bees
However, worldwide, bees are dying at an alarming rate, their habitat is disappearing, they suffer from lack of food and intoxication by pesticides.
Many fruits and vegetables could not be grown at such a large scale, or so cheaply, without bees.
Not only our nutrition depends on bees, with 70 of the around 100 crop species that feed 90% of the world being pollinated by bees. Today we use over 50,000 bee-pollinated plant species for #medicinalpurposes. The loss of bees would affect availability of medicinal plants used for #phytomedicines, like Echinacea, Calendula, Dandelion, Lavender and many others.
What can we do to save the bees?
Finzelberg is a #BeeSponsor for several colonies (see picture with Dietmar Kaiser, Wladim Pfaff with bees) located on its production sites.
This helps the bees to survive
This helps medicinal plants to grow
This helps us as to stay healthy with natural medicine