Beautiful Bees And Their Amazing Gifts To Us
These amazing tiny, but mighty creatures have to fly the same distance as three times around the planet to make 500g of honey. That means that in each of your Power products there are a few grams of honey, so they’ve had to fly a massive distance to make that for you.
On their travels each day they visit around 50 - 100 flowers on each trip from the hive. I quite like the idea of my day being spent visiting flowers and what I love even more is that they communicate by dancing. What a life! I only recently learnt that the bee’s brain is oval in shape and about the size of a sesame seed, yet it has a remarkable capacity to learn and remember things. For example, it is able to make complex calculations on distance traveled and foraging efficiency. (Fact from http://www.golden-green.ca).
There are lots more interesting facts about bees and I love this latest image you may have already seen on social media. That bees sleep in flowers and often together holding each other’s feet. The cutest photo ever! Onto the more serious stuff. As one of the pioneers in using Manuka Honey, we’ve seen its magical effect on healing wounds, ulcers, eczema, and many other skin conditions. As well as being antiseptic, it also creates a reaction in the skin that brings cell nutrients to the skin layers which further aids in the wellbeing of the cell. Honey includes enzymes, vitamins, minerals. It’s the only food that contains “pinocembrin”, an antioxidant associated with improved brain functioning. It also is a humectant which helps the skin retain moisture and be supple. Combined with HLA, glycerin and xanthan gum, it makes for a great moisture enhancer.
I love all the products bees create for us and find the bee venom really interesting in how rapidly it promotes collagen production. Of course, there is NO HARM to the bees in the collection of the venom. It’s collected by a sticky pad on a vibrating plate at the entrance of the hive and the bees drop their stinger in response to the vibration, the sticky pad collect a tiny portion of venom. This is collected over time and by very patient beekeepers. Since it is at such a high price point to buy, they are pretty careful about it. For me, anything that encourages beekeeping and increasing the bee pollution is something I want to support, but how cool that we get to use such incredible, unique ingredients like bee venom, honey, propolis and beeswax, all wonderful healing elements for us humans.
Next time you see a bee, take a moment to marvel at the long journey it’s been on to make honey, but also that it does get to sleep in flowers and spend much of its day dancing.
