Gathering pollen is not as easy as it sounds. Once a honeybee arrives at a flower, she settles herself in and nimbly scrapes off the powdery loose pollen from the stamen with her jaws and front legs, moistening it with a dab of the honey she brought with her from the hive. The enlarged and broadened tarsal segments of her legs have a thick trimming of bristles, called pollen combs. The bee uses these combs to brush the gold powder from her coat and legs in mid-flight. With a skillful pressing movement of her auricle, which is used as a hammer, she pushes the gathered gold into her baskets. Her pollen baskets, surrounded by a fringe of long hairs, are simply concave areas located on the outside of her tibias. When the bee's baskets are fully loaded, the microscopic golden dust has been tamped down into a single golden grain, or granule.
One of the most interesting facts about bee pollen is that it cannot be synthesized in a laboratory. When researchers take away a bee's pollen-filled comb and feed her manmade pollen, the bee dies even though all the known nutrients are present in the lab-produced synthesized food. Many thousands of chemical analyses of bee pollen have been made with the very latest diagnostic equipment, but there are still some elements present in bee pollen that science cannot identify. The bees add some mysterious "extra" of their own. These unidentifiable elements may very well be the reason bee pollen works so spectacularly against so many diverse conditions of ill health.
Honeybees do double duty. They are programmed to gather pollen and carry it back to the hive as food for the colony. However, even more important as far as humans are concerned, they are also responsible for the pollination of more than 80 percent of green growing things. As bees buzz from blossom to blossom, microscopic pollen particles coat their stubby little bodies so densely that they sometimes look like little yellow fuzz balls. When they arrive at the next flower, a portion of the live golden dust is transferred to that blossom and pollination is accomplished.
It is important to recognize that a one teaspoon dose of pollen takes one bee working eight hours a day for one month to gather. Each bee pollen pellet, contains over two million flower pollen grains and one teaspoonful contains over 2.5 billion grains of flower pollen.
Complete Nutrition
Bee pollen contains all the essential components of life. The percentage of rejuvenating elements in bee pollen remarkably exceeds those present in brewer's yeast and wheat germ. Bee pollen corrects the deficient or unbalanced nutrition, common in the customs of our present-day civilization of consuming incomplete foods, often with added chemical ingredients, which expose us to physiological problems as various as they are numerous.
Pollen is considered an energy and nutritive tonic in Chinese medicine. Cultures throughout the world use it in a surprising number of applications: for improving endurance and vitality, extending longevity, aiding recovery from chronic illness, adding weight during convalescence, reducing cravings and addictions, regulating the intestines, building new blood, preventing infectious diseases such as the cold and flue (it has antibiotic type properties), and helping overcome retardation and other developmental problems in children. It is thought to protect against radiation and to have anti-cancer qualities.
Nutrient deficiencies and all the health problems they cause are recognized worldwide as a growing problem. Because bee pollen contains all the nutrients needed to sustain life, it is being used on an ever larger scale for human nourishment and health. Science teaches that bee pollen contains many substances that combine to make it a healthy, nutritious, complete food. There are numerous reports from medical experience that conclusively show the benefits of bee pollen exceed that of a simple food item. And the bees do most of the work.
Bee-gathered pollens are rich in proteins, free amino acids, vitamins, including B-complex, and folic acid.
According to researchers at the Institute of Apiculture, Taranov, Russia, "Honeybee pollen is the richest source of vitamins found in Nature in a single food. Even if bee pollen had none of its other vital ingredients, its content of rutin alone would justify taking at least a teaspoon daily, if for no other reason than strengthening the capillaries. Pollen is extremely rich in rutin and may have the highest content of any source, plus it provides a high content of the nucleics RNA [ribonucleic acid] and DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid]."
Bee pollen is a complete food and contains many elements that products of animal origin do not possess. Bee pollen is more rich in proteins than any animal source. It contains more amino acids than beef, eggs, or cheese of equal weight. Bee pollen is particularly concentrated in all elements necessary for life.
How to Use Bee Pollen
Each golden granule is densely packed with live enzymes, just about every nutrient that has a name, and some elements that science has not yet identified or labeled. Your digestive system may not be accustomed to such intensely rich food. If you are a beginner, introduce bee pollen into your diet slowly, a granule or two at a time. Don't cook with the granules or add powdered granules to anything that requires heat. Heat destroys the live enzymes and reduces the nutrient value. Otherwise, the sky's the limit.
You can: Powder an ounce or two of granules and add cinnamon to taste. Cinnamon adds a delightful spiciness and aroma to the sweetness of pollen Stir powdered granules into vegetable juices, or even into water sweetened with raw honey. Whirl the powder into salad dressings. Sprinkle whole or powdered granules on toast topped with peanut butter.
Before taking a full dose of pollen it is very important to test for a possible extreme allergic reaction by ingesting just one pellet. Then gradually build up over a week or so to the correct dose.
The optimal dose of pollen varies with individual needs. For allergy prevention all that is required is about one teaspoon per day. You should gradually increase your dose to one tablespoon. It will give about five grams of protein which is a good addition if you already have some proteins in your meal, such as a legume dish.
Since your pollen is really a type of food and there are some fats in it. It is important to keep it refrigerated.
Bee Pollen for your Pets
Bee pollen was fed to hundreds of animals over a period of two years by scientist-researcher Dr. Remy Chauvin of the Institute for Bee Culture in Bures-sur-Yvette, France. Reporting to the French Academy of Medicine in 1956, Chauvin said, there were no side effects in the test animals. Furthermore, the use of bee pollen gave the animals increased vitality and improved "powers of reproduction" because of boosted fertility.
Beware of imported bee pollen: Virtually all of the major U.S. manufacturers of Bee Pollen have switched from selling domestic U.S. Bee Pollen to inexpensive imported pollen from China and Spain. These pollen are often heat processed and dehydrated to facilitate easy storage and increased shelf life. Unfortunately, heat destroys the bioactivity of nutrients and enzymes which are an important component of Bee Pollen. Granules of fresh bee pollen are semi-moist. When you buy Bee Pollen it is important to refrigerate the product.
Fresh Bee Pollen Often referred to as natures perfect food. With 96 known nutrients, it is a rich dietary source of zinc, calcium, magnesium and iron. It can energize you, give you a sense of well being, increase your intellectual capacity and close any nutritional gaps in your diet (shirleys-wellness-cafe.com)
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