What is bee bread made of?
What is bee bread made of?
Bee bread is a mixture of pollen and nectar or honey. This substance is the main source of food for honey bee workers and larvae. The exact composition of the bee bread varies depending on the plants that the bees forage from.
What is bee bread good for?
Bee bread is rich in antioxidants including flavonoids, carotenoids and glutathione. Together, they protect the body against free radicals, which can damage important cellular components and influence chronic diseases like cancer and type 2 diabetes. Bee bread’s value as an antioxidant is backed by science.
Is bee bread good for humans?
Bee collected pollen (BP) and bee bread (BB) have a high nutritional value and include bioactive compounds, which have a positive effect on human health, and therefore, are regarded as “functional foods”. These products are rich in proteins, simple sugars, essential amino acids and omega fatty acids.
Is bee bread safe to eat?
If you decide to try out bee pollen, it is generally safe to consume. However, you should consult with your doctor if you have a pollen or bee allergy or are pregnant or breastfeeding before introducing bee pollen into your diet.
Why is it called bee bread?
Honey bees may be known for their honey which comes from the nectar of flowers, but that isn’t the only food they store in their hives. Bees also create a partially-fermented food called bee bread. Honey bees fill these baskets grain by grain until they have dense balls of pollen stuck to their legs.
Can you make bee bread?
We know that honey bees collect nectar but they need pollen too. In fact, bees make bee bread using raw pollen. Fresh pollen would spoil when stored in beeswax cells for months at a time and it is difficult to digest. However, bee bread is nutritious, stable and easily digestible for honey bees.
Is bee bread better than bee pollen?
Bees process and increase nutritional value of the flower pollen through a fermentation process of their own. In this sense, bee bread is even more health-giving than the more commonly available fresh bee pollen. The bees will use their head to pack in layers of pollen, sealed by honey until it is about ¾ full.
How do you eat bee bread?
Bee bread is used in two ways. The first one is the use of bee bread in the original form of granules, by dissolving a few granules in the mouth for as long as possible. It is best to use bee bread half an hour before a meal, by dissolving the granules in the mouth for as long as possible.
Is bee bread fermented?
The bees collect nectar to make an enzymatically-activated, partially fermented food called honey. And they collect pollen to make a lacto-fermented, enzymatically-activated food called bee bread. Yes, that’s right, humans are not the only ones to purposefully ferment their foods.
What is the difference between bee bread and bee pollen?
Bee pollen is a mixture of flower pollen, nectar, enzymes, honey and bee secretions. Bee Bread is a fermented mixture of plant pollen, honey and bee saliva that worker bees use as source of protein for larvae, and for young bees.
What is the main ingredient in bee bread?
It consists of simple sugars, protein, minerals and vitamins, fatty acids, and a small percentage of other components. Also called bee bread, or ambrosia, it is stored in brood cells, mixed with saliva, and sealed with a drop of honey.
What is brood in beekeeping?
In beekeeping, bee brood or brood refers to the eggs, larvae and pupae of honeybees. The brood of Western honey bees develops within a bee hive.
What is beebread and how is it made?
They add wax and seal the comb cells. This mixture undergoes a lactic acid fermentation which is very similar to that in yogurt and other fermented milk products, and after almost 3 months becomes what we call beebread. This fermentation assures the preservation of the product and enriches it in nutrients.
What is the scientific name for a honey bee?
Honey bee. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey and have been kept by humans for that purpose, including the stingless honey bees, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees. The study of bees, which includes the study of honey bees, is known as melittology .