Propolis obviously has a major role to play in the honeybees immune defence. Propolis protects the colony physically, reinforcing every cell, creating a defendable entrance as well as an effective and adaptable ventilation system . Biologically, principally via the phenolic compounds, propolis prevents infectious agents from becoming dangerous when they join together by disconnecting and disabling bacterial and virus’s, disarming rather than destroying. Propolis provides the honeybee colony with a key capacity or ability to sustain itself. It is the most powerful component of the honeybee’s sustainability.
What propolis does for the honeybee ,we are discovering, it can also do for human beings. The colony is a body, a superorganism without a skin. The temperature inside this superorganism is very close to that in the human body. Over the last 70 years research has illustrated the many anti – properties of propolis , anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral etc.
Modern pharmaceutical medicine, however, did not develop the disabling, disconnecting and ultimately sustainable model demonstrated by propolis but has focused instead on targeted synthetic ,often single molecule actives often derived from plants and designed to directly destroy the bacteria, fungi, virus. The short-term benefits of this anti – medicines has been dramatically positive, but has in the long term contributed to some major global health care problems - antibiotic resistance and iatrogenesis. The sustainability of modern pharmaceutical medicine is in question.
Health consumers are turning in their millions to natural alternatives and medical scientists are developing the evidence base for therapies and products that have been used for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Propolis is emerging as one of nature’s most powerful and most sustainable supports for the human immune system. But how can this new more sustainable medicine be developed itself sustainably. The honeybee is not a commodity to be exploited. We must find a new relationship with what we call medicine and a new relationship with those natural medicines that may well hold a critical key to the restoration of positive health.