Bee Healthy - Eat Bee Pollen

We've been learning about bee pollen and its benefits in order to learn how to perhaps be healthier.  Bee pollen, research has shown, decreases inflammation and boosts the immune system.  It is full on minerals, vitamins and antioxidants.  

It is an interesting journey on how bee pollen is collected.  Pollen is formed on the male part of flowers.  Bees fly through the air and build a positive charge on their bodies.  When they visit a plant, the negatively charged pollen sticks to their bodies.  They fly from plant to plant, getting a variety of pollen on their foraging journey.

The honeybees groom themselves and get all the pollen off their body.  They spit up honey and mix it with the pollen grains.  These grains, now stuck together, are put in "pollen baskets" and are brought back to the hive.  It is used to feed the young bees.

So how do humans collect pollen to consume for its health benefits.  That was my question.  Beekeepers install pollen traps over the entrance to the hives.  Essentially, it is a small opening just large enough for the bees.  When they squeeze through, the pollen falls off of their legs and into a trap, where it is collected daily by the beekeeper.

Since this pollen is vital to the colony for nutrition, beekeepers only leave the traps set for a short period of time.  If they didn't, it could severely hurt the colony.  Our colony of bees resides in a hollow column outside our side door.  We don't have a way to get to the honey or the pollen.  For now, we purchase our bee pollen from an organic co-op called Azure Standard.  Here is a bag of bee pollen that we keep in the freezer.

As you can see, there's only one ingredient - bee pollen.  I look at that bag and think how very hard the honeybees worked to get that.  How many miles did they fly?  It is amazing.  I've read that they will fly 4 miles from the hive to collect pollen and nectar.

So each day we take 1/4 teaspoon as a supplement.

It has a sweet taste and is slightly spongy in texture.  Bees are the only insect that create food eaten by humans - honey, and now, bee pollen.  This spring, we plan on purchasing a colony of bees to put in a bee box.  That way we can collect honey and bee pollen.