We generally think of honeybees simply as insects that pollinate our flowers and orchards. However these complex insects have amazing abilities and a profound understanding of quantum physics. This ancient life form reveals potential that perhaps we will one day understand. The venom of the honeybee (Apis mellifera) has been used for over 2 000 years in the treatment of arthritis and it is believed that honeybees have been around for 120 million years having adapted to their ever-changing environment.
Age reversal The common honeybee has the amazing ability to change its age at will. All beehives have young worker bees taking care of the hatched larvae. These bees mature quickly and after 3 weeks of babysitting they move on to forager status. These bees then have the responsibility of collecting pollen. Beehives maintain a careful balance between young bees and older foragers. In spring there is often a surge in larvae hatching thereby tilting the equilibrium in the hive out of balance. When this happens an amazing phenomenon occurs. The young worker babysitter bees age rapidly into forager bees in just 1 week to balance the hive again. Bees from a hive often split from the parent hive to form a new colony. Those bees would all be mature. When this happens the older forager bees sense the shortage in their new hive of young worker bees and balance the equilibrium in their new hive by having some of the older bees reversing their age to become young worker bees yet again. This is an astounding discovery that alters our perception of ageing. The older bees implement age reversal by generating the young bee hormones, sometimes this includes regeneration of withered glands which are now required by the bee to produce food for the hatching larvae in the new colony. The bee researcher, Gene Robinson, stated ‘honeybee colonies are rhythmic entities that must constantly cope with changes in population size and structure, food availability, predators and weather’.(1) Somehow Botox seems to pale in comparison.
This amazing substance is antibacterial, antioxidant, antibiotic, antiseptic and anti-fungal. The propolis found in the pollen, unlike normal antibiotics, does not destroy the body’s own intestinal flora. Honey contains minerals calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium, sulphur, phosphorous and protein, all of which are essential for cell repair.
For those people that suffer from hay-fever honey is a wonder. Honey made from the local pollens in your area builds up the body’s resistance to those pollens. So the more often you enjoy honey the less you shall suffer from hay-fever attacks. The sugar content of honey combined with the many properties it possesses make it very effective against influenza. Influenza is a virus infection. Honey is a great ally to have to fight the viral war because through osmosis (taking fluid out of a cell) it kills off the virus infected cells while the healthy cells metabolise the same sugars and this speeds healing. This speeds up recovery and has no side effects such as drowsiness or nausea. Research at Rotterdam General Hospital has shown that the propolis in honey is effective against stomach ulcers.
Research has revealed that raw honey is effective for helping wounds to heal. Applied topically as an antiseptic, honey was studied for its ability to help burns to heal. In a comparative study between treating burns conventionally with silver sulfadiazene and raw honey on 104o burns, 91% of burns treated with honey were infection free compared to only 7% being treated with silver sulfadiazene. This study also revealed that burns treated with honey healed faster than burns not treated with honey. This fabulous attribute of honey is due to many factors. One being that raw honey is composed primarily of sugars fructose and glucose. When applied topically these sugars draw excess fluid out of wounds through osmosis effectively drying out weeping wounds which inhibits the growth of bacteria in these wounds as bacteria and fungi thrive in moisture. The enzyme glucose oxidase is an enzyme in raw honey which when combined with water (in the wound) produces hydrogen peroxide, which is an antiseptic. Raw honey also has antibacterial properties reducing infection of wounds through its antioxidant pinocembrin. The antibacterial action of raw honey has been found affective against Staphylococcus aureus (bacteria found in most wounds), Escherichia coli and Candida albicans. Another comparative study revealed that wounds treated with raw honey compared to iodine and alcohol in patients who had under- gone ceasarian section or hysterectomy healed faster, were infection free in fewer days which resulted in a shorter period of hosipatlisation after surgery.
Royal Jelly: Most honey still contains traces of royal jelly. Royal jelly is the food made by the worker bees to feed the queen bee larvae. Research has found that royal jelly contains 20 amino acids, vitamins which include vitamin C and most of the B complex group and minerals sodium, potassium and iron. It is thought that royal jelly reduces signs of aging.
Use honey as a face mask because it destroys any bacteria on the skin and is very soothing and moisturising. Rinse the honey off with water using no soap at all.
Use honey to preserve herbs. After picking, washing and patting dry the herbs, put into a sterilised screw top jar. Cover liberally with honey. Store in a cupboard for two weeks. Systematically replace the herbs with fresh ones. Through osmosis the herb’s properties are imparted into the honey, and with each fresh batch of herb the properties become more concentrated.
Some Honey History & Folklore Bees and their produce are so historically and mythologically intertwined with our past that they have given rise to many legends and myths. In ancient Egypt a part of their country was described as “bee-land” on a hieroglyph. The ancient Egyptians were not alone in their perception as honey being the food of the gods. In Greek mythology honey was called ambrosia and also the food of the gods. Ambrosia is usually prepared as a drink for the immortal gods. The sea nymph Thetis used ambrosia to preserve the body of the deceased Patroclus in Homer’s Illiad. Zeus requested that the god Apollo annoint Sarpedon with ambrosia. In ancient times the bee was used as a symbol that represented the Mother Goddess and the hive likened to the womb.
An ancient Hindu practice was to feed your child honey whilst requesting from Parvati that your child live to see a hundred autumns. The Hindu goddess Bhramari Devi is a bee goddess associated with sharing the knowledge of the chakra system. Chakra stimulation and balance allows expanding consciousness which is believed to sound like the buzzing of many bees.
Aphrodite supposedly used ambrosia to beautify herself. Aphrodite who was the mythological Greek goddess of love had a priesthood modeled after bees. Her shrine at Mount Eryx is shaped like honeycomb and her high priestess was named Melissa (queen bee). Modeled after the hive her virgin priestesses were termed Melissae (bees). It is interesting to note here that all worker bees are female. Bees in ancient Greece were considered to be the souls of dead / past priestesses. In ancient times the term virgin did not mean chaste but instead meant that a woman was not coupled with or belonged to one particular man. Instead she was a free agent. Many ancient cultures had sacred priestesses whom served the community by having sacred intercourse to open channels to the universe / god / unlimited potential. At the Ephesian temple to Artemis the melissae priestesses were associated with essenes (drones) who were transgendered priests. The Queen Bee in the ancient Greek Aphrodite priestesshood united the earth and sky (the sacred union) in her sexual unions. This form of worship celebrated the fertility aspect of the goddess Aphrodite. Their shrine modeled in the shape of honeycomb embodied the hexagonal shape which is believed to be the sacred geometric shape for harmony. It is also purported that the priestesses of Aphrodite performed a sacred dance which mimics the behaviour of bees when they have found a good source of honey. In ancient Greece the dead were embalmed in honey inside urns. An Egyptian papyrus which dates back to 1500 B.C. and incidentally the Jewish Talmud, state that honey can be used to heal both internal and external illnesses.
The oracles at Delphi also purportedly drank honey mead that they brewed from a secret recipe passed down from one oracle to another over time. As bees were divine messengers the Thriae asked for payment in honey as honey would bring the seers more prophecies. The high priestess at Delphi was also referred to as the queen bee and it is purported that a bee symbol was on their coins during that period.
Bee and honey related links are also found in the bible. In Biblical times, the matriarchal ruler of Israel was named "Deborah," which in Hebrew means "bee." It is believed that this name comes from the Mycean bee goddess. The promised land was called the land of milk and honey. In Slavic folklore the bee is linked with the immaculate conception by the Virgin Mary. The bee has also been used as another symbol for the Virgin Mary. In eastern Europe Mary is considered the protectress of bees and their keepers, and honey, is associated with the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (August 15th) which is the day that celebrates Mary’s ascension. Amazingly even Krishna was sometimes depicted as a bee.
Quantum Physics Mathematician Barbara Shipman has mapped the dance performed by honeybees when they enter the hive with a new location for pollen. The bees perform a dance to communicate the location to the other worker bees. Her mapping has revealed that the bees are communicating six dimensional figures (geometry) onto two dimensions. This implies that the bee is aware of the quantum world as it is only in that “realm” that six geometry has any real meaning. This space in symplectic geometry is known as “flag manifold”. This reveals that the bees have instincts which are astoundingly mathematical, in both the “sacred” geometric shape of the honeycomb to the sacred geometric dance that they perform in their ritual dances.
References
1. Ageless Body, Timeless Mind - Deepak Chopra, Rider Publications 1998. 2. www.npr.org 3. *Helicobacter / Volume 9 Issue 5 Page 583 - October 2004 / doi:10.1111/j.1083-4389.2004.00255-15.x / Volume 9 Issue 5 http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/d * Przegl Lek. 2000;57(4):191-4. Hartwich A, Legutko J. Wszolek J. Propolis: its properties and administration to patients treated for some surgical diseases]. PMID: 10967929 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. I Katedra Chirurgii Ogolnej, Collegium Medicum, Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego w Krakowie. * http://www.thehoneydoctor.com/acatalog/MANUKA.html * Susceptibility of Helicobacter pylori to the antibacterial activity of manuka honey. Al-Somal-N; Coley-KE; Molan-PC; Hancock-BM , . Journal-of-the-Royal-Society-of-Medicine; 87 (1) 9-12, 29 ref. 1994 4.Cooper RA, Molan PC, Harding KG. "The sensitivity to honey of Gram-positive cocci of clinical significance isolated from wounds". Journal of Applied Microbiology. 2002;93:857-863. 5. Br J Surg.1991 Apr;78(4):497-8. Topical application of honey in treatment of burns. Subrahmanyam M. Department of Surgery, Dr V.M. Medical College, Maharashtra, India. http://ijl.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/5/1/40 6. Peter Charles Molan.PhD - Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Director of the Honey Research Unit, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Waikato / Honey as a topical antibacterial agent for treatment of infected wounds. Published: December 2001 7. http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0076e/w0076e16.htm