words Alexa Wang
Raw honey is a common and widely used folk remedy throughout history. Its use dates as far back as Ancient Egypt. Supposedly, Cleopatra mixed honey and milk to make face masks and baths. No wonder! Both of these ingredients exfoliate and moisturize the skin, leaving it smelling sweet and fresh.
Though honey is usually used as a nutritional product, it is so much more than that. Since honey is high in sugar and low in the water, bacteria can not grow on it. This thick, sweet liquid made by honeybees, has numerous health benefits associated with its antioxidant content. However, honey bees do not produce only honey. Honey products wholesale can range from honey-based food products to honey-based candles, cosmetics, and medicine. Let us look closely at some of the best honey bee products and their potential health benefits.
Honey’s potential health benefits
Honey for medical use
Honey carries about 70 to 80 percent sugar, which provides its sweetness. It also has antiseptic and antibacterial properties. Due to these attributes, modern medical science uses honey in chronic wound management and combating infection. It is used for reducing the duration of diarrhea, preventing acid reflux, fighting infections, relieving cold and cough symptoms, and replacing added sugar in the diet. Since honey is a rich source of phenols and other antioxidant compounds, it may also help heart arteries dilate, thus increasing blood flow to the heart. These antioxidant compounds may also help in preventing blood clot formation, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.
Nevertheless, even more, honey is used in traditional and alternative medicine as a treatment for clinical conditions ranging from wound healing to cancer. Practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine, for example, use honey as a remedy for many conditions- stress, sleep disturbance, bad breath, teething pain in children over a year old, cough and asthma, hiccups, stomach ulcers, dysentery, vomiting, high blood pressure, hangover relief, eczema, and dermatitis, etc. While not all uses of honey are confirmed as useful, trying it as treatment certainly would not hurt.
Keeping your honey as raw as possible is the key to its natural health benefits. Raw honey is unprocessed and is not pasteurized, meaning that it contains all of its original nutrients and enzymes. With a honey heater, it is possible to heat honey without losing its natural health benefits. From a bee blanket honey heater to a heated bottling tank, there are various options to keep your honey warm for bottling without destroying its nutritional value. Plus, raw honey is more flavorful compared to pasteurized honey.
Honey for skin care and other cosmetics
In cosmetics, honey is used as a skin moisturizer, a humectant, an antibacterial, and a flavoring ingredient. The industry uses it in the production of face masks, hair lightener, and a hair conditioner. Thanks to its slightly acidic, anti-microbial properties, honey can never grow mold or go off. The enzymes present in it, release the natural acne-bacteria-blasters, which makes it not only clarifying, but also suitable for treating acne-prone skin. However, honey is ideal for all skin types. Alongside its anti-microbial properties, it offers up a substantial serving of antioxidants that accelerate the healing of the skin.
For this reason, many suffering from sensitivity or skin conditions such as eczema or rosacea see particular improvements when using honey or honey-based skincare products. The best way to start using honey in your daily skincare regime is with a mask. And you do not need to spend a lot of money. Make your own by applying high-grade manuka honey all over your face and leave it on for 20-30 minutes.
Other popular honey-based products
Despite honey, there are also other very common (and incredible) honey bee by-products. Here are a few:
Bee pollen is another popular bee product, usually confused with the allergy-causing pollen that is carried by the wind. Bee pollen rarely causes allergy symptoms. It is the male seed of a flower blossom which are collected by the honey bees and mixed with the bees’ digestive enzymes. Bee pollen is low in calories, but rich in proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, beneficial fatty acids, carbohydrates, and bioflavonoids. All these features make bee pollen antiviral, antibacterial, and helpful in lowering cholesterol, stabilizing, and strengthening capillaries. Its ability to reinvigorate the body, improve vitality, and accelerate the rate of recovery makes it a popular tonic among athletes and sportspeople.
Bee wax is a natural secretion from wax glands on the sides of the body of honey bees. It is used primarily as a building block for the bees’ honeycomb cells in which the young are raised, and honey and pollen are stored. Honey bees feed themselves with honey and group together to raise the temperature of the cluster, to stimulate the production of beeswax. This honey bee by-product can be found in many goods, including skincare products, candles, furniture polish, batik-making, etc.
Royal jelly is the queen bee’s great source of food. It is a blend of secretions from the salivary glands of the worker bee. It contains a high concentration of vitamins B5, B6, and amino acids. Many people believe it is a potent antioxidant, a unique rejuvenating substance that promotes tissue growth, muscle, and cell regeneration.
Propolis is made after honey bees chew the collected from the buds of some trees and conifers, and mixing them with their saliva and other substances. Propolis is of vital significance for the survival of the honey bees since it protects them against diseases and helps fight against climatic changes, such as wind and cold. This honey bee by-product has antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant qualities. For this reason, Propolis is popularly used to combat a wide variety of illnesses. Many people also use it as an ointment for healing cuts and wounds.
Bee bread is pollen collected by bees, mixed with bee digestive fluids and nectar, and compressed into bee brood cells. The bees then seal these cells with honey and stored in the hive for later consumption. Bees do this because they do not consume pollen in its raw form. This honey bee product is known to be useful in treating stress, failing memory, anemia, hepatitis, insomnia, cholesterol, and digestive tract disorder. These potential health benefits are a result of it is structure, comprised of essential amino acids, high contents of vitamins, especially vitamin K, enzymes, and flavonoids.
