Propolis Mats

Extracting Propolis from a hive

Normally, to harvest propolis, we use a propolis mat. The dribbles of the previous post are just a bonus.

A full propolis mat

Our bees make a lot of high quality propolis, and we think it is because we linseed oil our boxes and the bees just love that. It seems to keep our bees healthy too. A double win.

Another full propolis mat

This propolis goes off to someone else to make high quality health products.

And check out this great video of scraping down a propolis mat - no, its not our beeboys, they have a kiwi twang, and we just send them off and don't do it ourselves. The mats, we send the mats off for a scrape down, not the beeboys.......

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Propolis

Propolis from bees

Our bees are making rich orange propolis by the bucket load. Here is a box in the 'winter scrape down processing department' and the orange dribbles are leftover propolis.

Propolis on a beehive box

Propolis is a product the bees make from plant resin and beeswax. It's thought it keeps the bees healthy. It definitely glues the boxes together to keep them air tight and cosy. Its name comes from Greek for 'defense of the city', the bee city of course.

It contains a whole bunch of active compounds that seem to have all sorts of health benefits to humans, like antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal and anti-inflammatory. But it is one of those things that is not well studied or understood. You can buy propolis lozenges, capsules, spray and creams.

Propolis from bees

Our bee expert Bob swears by it for health, and these old bee dudes know a few things the rest of us are just catching up on. Sounds a bit like the story of manuka honey doesn't it?

And, as a side revenue stream from our amazing bees, it's all good. Bees do way more than just make honey. More on this in future posts.