I.2.KNOWN AND UNKNOWN ABOUT BEE GIFTS

* The honey is the most famous product of the bee colony. The bees, however, give to the people a variety of products: honey, cap, pollen, bee bread, royal jelly, apilarnil, propolis, beeswax and bee venom. Except the last two listed, they are food.

* The ambrose, as it is called the eternal life drink of the gods of Olympus, was brewed with honey.

* The honey was surnamed, because of its energizing and refreshing effects"the old men milk".

* The honey is the oldest sweetener that people could have.

* The honey is the food that is closest to the structure of the blood.

* Unlike the sugar, the honey develops and protects the human intelligence. The brain, in order to maintain and exercise their duties, needs glucose, which is his only food. The honey, with very small differences, usually contains about 32% glucose, which is a part of the category of the directly assimilated monosugars (it is a hexose). Therefore, one who consumes daily 100 g of honey provides the body 32 g of glucose. The fructose the honeys contained in a proportion of about 38% may be metabolized into glucose.

* Romania, although ranked fourth among the European countries for the honey production, is on one of the last places in consumption per inhabitant of this wonderful food. It seems that both parents and children appreciate more the candy, chocolate or other sweets made with sugar and various flavorings, more or less unhealthy.

* Some people say that they do not consume honey and do not buy it for their children, because it would be too expensive. Never, however, 100 g of honey does not cost more than a chocolate bar of the same weight. If we add to this the cost of the treatment for various conditions that people would not cross if they replace sugar with honey, the advantages, including the financial ones, would argue for replacing the sugar with honey.

* Often, people ask the question: "How much honey should I eat daily?" The most common recommendation considers as normal and healthy the consumption of honey of 1-3g per kg of body weight. Discussing the normal consumption of honey, however, must be nuanced. It is known that the lipids are the most important energy source for the human body. They are necessary for the human body, especially in amounts slightly higher for persons performing strenuously works. Their exaggerated use, however, according to their quality and beyond the necessary body functions, but also to the possible imbalances in the lipids metabolism, causes a number of diseases caused by the known and more frequent dyslipidemia. Listing them, from the cardiovascular diseases until the diabetes of type II, is discouraging long. In this paper we propose to draw the attention – a fact actually less discussed in the medical literature – on the influence of dyslipidemia in the onset of many cancers. In the rightful place in the chapter on diseases treated through apitherapy we illustrate these situations with a large number of real clinical cases.

I stated that glucose is the only food of the human brain, which is sufficiently shown in clinical medical studies. If so, even without medical reasons, it is clear that glucose, otherwise necessary to all people, should be required in larger quantities by the pupils, students and all persons engaged intellectually. Decreasing the consumption of fat for the sake of the carbohydrate, is by far more necessary for the people sitting on the chair, thanks to the nature of their activities, many, many hours a day. These people, who do very little movement, if  were self-analysed, would find that they almost reached, especially after a number of years, even to avoid, even to be less aware of the physical effort. Even if they intend to begin a program involving exercises and physical exertion they postpone it indefinitely for the most various reasons - sometimes they are looking for exactly these reasons, and if not, they invent them. In the most cases, these individuals are consistent to consume fat and sugar-based sweets, but are not consistent with the program started and quit it much more easily than the effort of will with which they started it.

           The advantage of the regular consumption of honey is that it provides the greatest amount and most important number of carbohydrates assimilated directly without the need for them to cross any digestive enzyme cleavage, as happens with the ordinary sugar which is, after all, a white coal. In addition to the sucrose, the only substance it contains is only a tiny quantity of water at a rate of 0.01%. Some nutritionists, when discussing the value of the sugar for the body, without exaggerating too much, call it "white death".

          The glucose of the honey, unlike the fats, which acts more slowly, is the fastest energizing physically and intellectually, almost instantly restoring the exercise capacity (it replaces rapidly the glucose consumed during the exercise).

* The largest consumers of honey must be the youngest: the children! Their appetite for eating sweets, whatever they may be, is determined, in addition to taste, by the high energy consumption necessary to their growth and also to the fact that they are in a constant motion, or they learn.

          Up to and including the adolescence, the regular consumption of 3 g of honey per kg of body weight, especially for those who do not eat fruits, is more than beneficial. Except that it does not supplies fibers – the pollen it makes, but not enough - it would be very difficult, if not impossible even for a real nutritionist, to compile a list of fruits that contain a more complete and balanced cocktail of carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, etc.. than the honey. But no problem, the honey consumption may be higher. For example, up to 20 kg weight of a child, 5g of honey consumption per kg of body weight is not excessive - would total about 100 g per day. How many children of this size, not eating a chocolate of 100 g - or other sweets - if they are given to them or they have it at hand? The amount of 100 g of honey is not more than 6-7 teaspoons of medium size and the honey can be consumed as such or as a sweetener. A slice of bread, maybe a little toast with butter and honey, along with a cup of rosehips tea slightly sour can make the healthy delight of any child. And if they mix the honey with some cocoa powder and over the buttered slice, then they put honey and some walnut kernels, the last possibly a little crushed, I can only wish them: Enjoy it ! And the honey with nuts, are genuine suppliers of lecithin. On a body weight of 40-50 kg, depending on the structure and regular daily diet, the daily consumption of 3 g of honey - 120-150 g per day is not excessive. Seems to be much honey? A single cup of tea, especially if it contains more vitamin C - so it is sour - requires about 4 tablespoons of honey (about 50 g).

* To maintain its qualities, the honey should not be exposed to the direct sunlight. Produced in the darkness of the hives, although the nectar is made from the flowers pampered by the sun, the honey is photosensitive.

* Heating honey to 710 C, means to destroy the invertase in 40 minutes; the heating for 4.5 hours will destroy half of the usual amount of enzymes. If the honey is kept at high temperature or heated for 5 hours, it produces a toxic substance, which makes it unfit for consumption – the hydroximethylfurfuraldehide (HMF).

* The honey should be maintained in the longer term, at 8-90C temperatures.

* The honey in the hive is produced at an average temperature of 37oC and is thermostable (compared to the normal temperature of the human body). Therefore it cannot be subjected to some temperatures above 40-450 C, or it will lose a lot of its therapeutic potential (the teas, for example, to protect the quality of the honey, shan’t be sweeten when hot !).

* In the honey were identified 350 substances (the sugar contains only ... sugar).

* The colour of the different varieties of honey, monofloral, polyfloral or honeydew, is given by the pigments contained in the nectar of the flowers.

* The medically most valuable honey is the polyfloral honey. It is produced from the honey flora in the precincts of the apiary, with addition or not, of any crop flora. Sometime in 1990, I sent to a laboratory in Germany, a sample of polyfloral honey obtained from our apiary (the stationary one), located on the hill with the archaic name Prisăci of the locality Bălănești of Gorj county. From the analysis report that I received – which I published in 1998 in my book “Apitherapy’s ABC” -  appeared that this honey was the result of the nectar of 68 melliferous plants in the area. When researching the floral origin of honeys, the most important indicator is the pollen content (it can not be seen with the naked eye).

* The honey in honeycombs and the cap, chewable extensively, offers to the consumer an extra flavor and substances (the wax, for example, contains more vitamin A than the meat).

* The ability of the body to absorb almost all the honey intaken, exceeds the degree of assimilation of any other food. For 1 kg of honey consumed, the degree of assimilation is 98% (ie, in 1000 g, only 20 g residues are removed).

* Even in the ancient Egypt, about the beneficial effects of honey for the children, it was found that the students who ate honey were more developed physically and intellectually.

* The ancient Greek soldiers received in military campaigns, a daily ration of honey (maybe this way was possible to appear the marathon).

* The antimicrobial activity of the honey, say the researchers, is superior to that of the penicillin and streptomycin.

* No food is more sterile than honey. Even the honey seeded with the most dangerous bacteria, soon becomes sterile. The reason is simple: the bacteria can not live without a tiny amount of water they contain; the honey, as it is strongly hydrophilic, will extract the water and the bacteria are killed. In the honey there are also substances with antigerminative antiseptic, bactericidal and antibiotic action.

* Many mothers avoid that the milk and tea be sweetened with honey until their child is one year old, because the doctors told them that they risk to botulism. Let’s clarify the things. With the health of the food of animal production, in the list of which the honey is included, too, deals the medical-veterinary authority. It is known that botulism is a frequently fatal food poisoning caused by eating meat sometimes, but mostly the canned food containing Clostridium botulinum (bacillus toxin). But the honey produced by "the animal" called the bee, even if mechanically listed among the animal food, is as sterile as possible. For the children of the beekeepers, in the houses of which the sugar is missing, the honey is the first sweetener they receive. However, their children do not take botulism. From the large number of mothers I have advised to sweeten the milk and and teas of their children with honey, none complained that her baby would have suffered from botulism. No pediatrician as far as I know, knows any case of botulism caused by honey. And yet, because the honey is included in the list of food of animal origin, they continue to advise mothers not to give it to their children up to the age of one year, depriving them of this wonderful elixir, true symbol of health.

* All great things happen with hard work. The flowers nectar is not honey. The honey is made from nectar, to which the bees add as their own secretions, the priceless enzymes that give life to this wonderful apiarian product. Of the many enzymes found in honey an important place has the Invertase, which inverts (transforms) he sugar of the nectar in directly assimilable monosaccharides. An important place is occupied, among others, by the enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase, whose anti-inflammatory value is higher in the autoimmune diseases to any steroidal or non-steroidal drug (both these enzymes may be found in the honey bee therapeutic products we produce in the Apitherapy Medical Center).

          To produce 1 kg of honey, the bees bring in the hive honeycombs 4 liters of nectar. During the day and especially at night, shall be made the winnowing for drying the nectar: ​​some bees, placed in a certain order, ceaseless blow their wings so that the created air currents, covering the surfaces of the combs, be directed towards the bee entrance and from there outside the hive. The currents are loaded with the water vapors of the nectar, which are winnowed by other bees: it is taken in the crops, and moved for hundreds of times, from one cell to another. At each move, the bees add each time to it the enzymes they specifically secrete. When the water of nectar is reduced to a concentration of about 17 to 18% the wax bees (the young ones, which yet never flew outside the hive), cover every cell filled with honey with a thin layer of wax. They cap it, say the beekeepers. When the surfaces of the combs are capped in a ratio of at least two-thirds, the honey is, as say these extraordinary people, baked. It has all the qualities needed to feed the bee family until the next spring, when the trees and flowers will be able to provide the future nectar. But now, when the honey is capped, the beekeepers know it's time for harvesting – meaning to extract the honey from the combs. It is "the great robbery": the bees do not collect the honey for us. We get it from them !

* How to choose a real honey without falsification? No one can take in the markets and stores a laboratory after him. However, the buyer can use a minimum of knowledge. A good "baked" honey so with a normal content of water, must weigh, at a volume of one liter container, between 1450 and 1480 grams + - 10 grams. It is also at hand the ink pencil and the pear tests, but the most accurate is the test of crystallization. If the sharp tip of an ink pencil is soaked in honey and when writing with it on paper, it will defile. If a jar of honey is turned upside down a pear-shaped air bubble will apear, rising slowly to the bottom of the jar. If the air bubble is not formed or it goes very quickly, then the honey is not mature enough (it has a higher water content than normal). But the most available evidence is that of crystallization. Except the honeydew honey, the honeys crystallize (they shall be sugared, as they say in the current language). The acacia honey crystallizes even after the elapse of about four years. The more rapid or more slow  crystallization of the polyfloral and monofloral honey is a perfectly normal phenomenon. For example, the sunflower honey and the raspberry honey crystallize shortly after extraction. The polyfloral honey begins to crystallize about the middle-late fall. Many buyers-consumers do not know this and complain that the beekeepers were made their honey with sugar. The beekeepers know this and to sell their work, cook the honey. It will not crystallize, but will be severely depleted of its bioactive principles. If in the late fall and winter the honey is not crystallized, it was well cooked. If packed soon after boiling, at the top of upper edge of the column of honey of the jar arise a series of bubbles (like a continuous necklace). How to choose a crystallized honey? If the honey crystals are large, looking like the coarse salt, then the honey is natural, but it contains a little too much water. If the honey has a velvety appearance, much like the lard, with fine crystals almost visually indistinguishable, then the honey is genuine and has an adequate water content. But, above all, with a enzyme content richer than the coarse crystallized honey.

* The enough matured (baked) honey, with a normal content of enzymes is mainly produced in the apiaries which don’t go to the pastoral, but in the stationary apiaries. When the apiary is in the pastoral and the harvesting ceases, the beekeepers do not expect that the combs where the honey was deposited be capped on the proportion of at least 2/3 of their area. They extract the insufficiently matured honey and start with the apiary to another source. As I said, "the dryness" of the nectar is made by winnowing it by the bees, namely by moving it, for hundred times, from cell to cell. Taking the honey in their crops, to move it, every time the bees add to it  beneficial enzymes. Sometimes the honey which is too liquid is put in the maturing devices - some large metal drums, left in direct sunlight. So, the honey, by evaporation, is brought to the normal concentration of carbohydrates, but it will be much poorer in enzymes. The beekeepers - those who practice the stationary beekeeping - have the necessary time between harvests to wait the full maturation of the honey, which will have a normal enzyme content, too.

* What is the best honey? It is a question more than usual. All honeys are good ! Obviously, a well-ripened acacia honey, colorless, is smooth and pleasant. From the medical point of view, however, the most valuable polyfloral honeys are obtained from the spontaneous flora. And among these may be qualitative differences, given the more or less diversity of the spontaneous flora. Each flower of each melliferous plants offers - in nectar and pollen - some inherent principles, useful to the human health. They are usually the honeys we employ in the production of the honey bee therapeutical products. The most remineralized of the honeys is the honeydew. The monoflower honeys – of lime, cilantro, mint, raspberry, etc.. – with somewhat customed taste, are effective in those conditions for which are also used the plants whose nectar reaches the consumer's table and jar. The easiest to fake it is the acacia honey. And the fake - water and sugar - is more difficult to prove even in laboratories, if the counterfeiter shakes over the open hive branches of acacia with flowers in them, as their pollen reaches the honey. Usually, the identification of the floral origin of a honey is based on the analysis of the pollen grains that it contains (in quantities invisible to the naked eye).

* We talked about honeydew honey. I think it is appropriate to clarify what it is. It is a brown honey with reddish and sometimes green reflexes when viewed in the direct sunlight. This honey is  relatively rare and less common, even avoided by the uninformed buyers, mainly due to its color. In fact, it is a valuable and tasty honey. Not obtained in all years. In particular microclimatic conditions, the bacteria lachnide (lecanide), sting the leaves of some trees - oak, willow, fir etc. – retain the extracted proteins and remove the carbohydrates. On the pierced leaves appears a sticky film, which is gathered by the bees and transformed into what is called honeydew honey. Therefore, it is not about the manna affecting some crops, nor about the manna that fed the Jews wandering the desert in search of the Promised Land.

* The best and harmless soporific: a glass of warm water sweetened with honey, in addition, is fight the constipation and help the removal of toxins.

* In many apitherapy clinics in the world to treat respiratory diseases are used the honey aerosols.

* The honey is an unrivaled preservative: the Ceylon island population cut the meat into pieces, coat them with honey and hang them at 1 m above the ground, where they remain unaltered and good tasting more than a year. Personally, when I go with the hives in the mountain pastoral for a longer time, at the fir tree, I put the “steaks” in the jar, portioned and a little "dry" before. I pour honey over them "in full" and I wash the sweet in the spring and get the tastiest "vegetarian" meal: steak roasted on coals or baked in the fire wrapped in umber leaves greased with oil; I can easily obtain the "drug" of a fermentation of raspberries and / or blueberries with water and honey (that beat away the best Germanic beer). It is not the place to tell you how to make a roast cooked in the fire like the baked potatoes. But since because of the lack of time we prepare it only when we are with the hives in pastoral at the fir tree, I say it's a pastoral beekeeping steak. As for us, we rigorously control the meat consumption. We don’t encourage anyone to excess, nor eat any kind of meat. We carefully avoid the beef (it stimulates the collagen, fibrosis), and the poultry meat, too, especially if farmed, "forced" grown. The rat, monkey and pig meat offer the nearest cellular structure to the the human one. Since you are not in the mood to eat rats and you do not have monkeys, only the pig remains in question, which is usually bypassed in the favor of other meats. Perhaps when we talk about hyper - or hipoproteinemaea, about autoimmune diseases, or about dyslipidemia, we’ll return to rigorous scientific data on this issue.

         Among other reasons, because there are cases where the meat consumption should be drastically limited, or even completely banned. In the absence of the nutritionists - we call as those who know what they say, not those who say what they know ! – the TV and media are “masters” in the nutrition education, and most of the information is spread by people without knowledge of human metabolism, including cellular, they say what they know, but often they do not know what they say. One example: the turkey contains more cholesterol than the pork.

        Let us return, however, to the most delicious "bee" steak. If you do not know the umber, of whose leaves greased with oil you can serve yourselves, you must grease well with oil a larger piece of white paper. At its middle, place the meat slices whose thickness is approximately two cm. You can put any seasoning you like, and if you don’t have another, put thyme and mint leaves from the field - you will not regret it ! You can place over this layer of meat green pepper or pimiento, onion and tomato slices. Place over them another round of meet cuts - depending on the number of messmates and then wrap so that the steak is wrapped in four layers of paper greased with oil. Meanwhile, one of the messmates shall make a good fire: if they all participate in the feast, not let them stay with their hands in their breast ! When are enough embers, place the "package" so that you have a layer of embers under the package, too, but also so that you can wrap it, like they deal with baked potatoes (if they are handy, you can put between or over meat, even potato slices). Make again the fire over embers for about 45-50 minutes. Then remove the embers and remove the package from fire, too. You will see that since they are protected with oil only the first two layers of paper are punched by fire. You’ll eat the most tender and tastiest steak and the flavor of the vegetables will be unforgettable. If you have a garden, no need to wait for the coming summer to prepare such steaks. If you do not succeed, keep in mind that my advice is certainly good. Search blame elsewhere ! If in the mountains are children, too, then mix 3 kg of crushed raspberries with a kg of honey, add the juice of 3-4 lemons and wait two or three hours, then strain. If it seems to be too consistent, add, after taste, cold water spring. You get a juice hard to forget, perfectly natural. For the adults, for 3 kg of raspberries add a kg of honey, two liters of water, one to two lemons in their shell and yeast about as a nut. Put everything in a bowl with fermentation stopper. To speed up the preparation, place the pot in a colorless foil and place it in the sun. The next day, in the evening, you will have some sort of flavored beer, with low alcohol content. After about three or four days drink it in moderation, or the diners will cheer about ! It's called, to stick to the topic discussed, "the bee joy" (it contains honey, isn’t it ?)

* The eggs, preserved in honey, are fresh after four years, too.

* Great preservative by itself thanks to its biochemical structure, the honey is a food that is selfpreserved for millennia and can be consumed without risk. One of the cases which demonstrate the veracity of this statement, is the Russian explorer Mikluho Maklai. He discovered a 2,000 years old amphora where there was honey. Curious, the explorer ate some of the millennial honey and his body tolerated it without any unpleasant reaction.

* The incomparable preservative qualities of the honey served us the most in producing the honey bee therapeutic products in the laboratories SC STUPINA Ltd of the Apitherapy Medical Clinic Center. With all our efforts, whatever the biochemical structureof the honey bee therapeutic products could be, we were not able to identify another preservative to ensure the stability of the product during the time, but not adversely affect the health. There are few food supplements and even foods in the trade which do not contain preservatives. Recently, the labels hide the preservative substances under the name of stabilizers. This name seems less alarming, especially since, in the past decade, the information on the pathogenic potential of a large number of preservatives have gone beyond the pages of publications. The honey, unlike other preservatives is, by its properties, simultaneously, a food and a genuine product.

* The Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast bought from Geto-Dacian "cattle and slaves" and among luxury items, "plenty of honey and beeswax"; the Greeks sold them their "oil and all kinds of wines," says the historian Polibiu in 150 BC

* Interesting is the testimony of Strabo's Thracian history of Moesia people, which "are wary of piety, not eating creatures and there is why they do not touch the meat of their cattle. But they eat honey, milk and cheese, leading a peaceful life" writes Strabo.

* Ptolomeu, another Greek historian, wrote in 150 AD "Dacia people are familiar with honey, milk and iron".

* Priscus of Panion, sent as ambassador by the Byzantine Emperor in Pannonia, to the "Scourge of God" - Attila, king of the Huns - passing through the Banat of nowadays, writes that "the villages brought me food ... instead of wheat, millet, and instead of wine, mead, as the locals call it". The mead is a beverage made from honey.

* In an Egyptian papyrus on remedies from honey, the egyptologist Georg Ebers could decipher the exhortation: "Use it, since honey is very good indeed."

* In the oldest medical Hindu document, Book of Life (Jadjur-Veda), for those who want to prolong their life to 500 years ! is recommended, among other elixirs, the honey.

* In the Hebrews, the children received as food melted butter and honey.

* The religions of many nations and peoples themselves, considered blessed the people and rich  the "land flowing with milk and honey".

* The greek philosopher Democritus recommended his friends the secret of a long and healthy life: "exterus olio, interus mele" (give to your exterior oil and to your interior honey).

* Vergilius considered honey "a divine gift fallen from heaven."

* Gandhi, an Indian politician and thinker, was violent and impulsive in his youth. After starting to consume daily 50 g honey he has become a balanced person.

* A popular Russian proverb says that along with honey, you can swallow the most unpleasant medicine: "With honey you can swallow your ass, as well." Is it so? The Romanian treasure - and not only that - the Russians swallowed without honey, I know well this; maybe nausea come from it to them and they’ll return our treasure to us!

* Unlike the Russians, the profiteers of the  "revolution?" of '89 swallowed the Romanian forests with a chainsaw and the gold of the Apuseni mountains, the temple of the great Iancu, with dollars: the nausea hasn’t come to them. Generous men, they bequeaths us over centuries, a sea of cyanide. The honey helps the memory: eat honey to not forget them and to put them and their wealthy followers to the “Pillar of infamy” ! The history has memory: it did not forgotten Deceneu for the innocent cut of the vines of Dacia; how to forgot the ones which bring the cyanide, symbol of death ? Or, of course, the shale gases !

* The famous doctor D.C. Jarvis, in Folk Medicine, said with complete justice that the honey contains all the vitamins that nutritionists recommend; in addition, it is the best preservative of vitamins.

* On a stone in the temple of the Greek god of medicine, is still an inscription: "Do not get angry, calmly, drink milk with honey, theater and easy gymnastics....". Beautiful! Beautiful, wise and true!

* Rediscovering the folk medicine, in many clinics, reassessing the antigerminative (germicidal) and bactericidal power of the honey, the postoperative wounds instead of classical dressings are dressed with honey. The cicatrisation is much faster and its signs are less obvious scarring.

*  My personal experience on the antigerminative power of honey: I put in honey cereal grains and seeds of many plants; none cornered, though the honey contains more water than land!

* Experiences of some pediatricians in Switzerland, USA, Russia etc. have seen that in the groups of children who received milk sweetened with honey, the hemoglobin was 25% higher than in children who received milk sweetened with sugar. It is one of the proofs of the anti-anemic incomparable potential of the honey.

* The honey to which the bee breathes life, crosses the man ages: it develops itself (it qualitatively develops itself of nectar), it matures itself and begins to age after a year of harvesting. Basically, after passing a year after the harvest begins the process of reinverting the “–oses”: glucose, fructose, mannose and so on - in simple sugar. The invertase - an enzyme secreted by the bees during the transformation of the nectar into honey - gradually begins to lose effect one year after the harvest, so starts the reinverting course of the directly assimilable sugars in regular sugar, whose assimilation requires digestive processing. But it is known, about the same track which have the medicinal plants, too - one year after the harvest, their therapeutic potential begins to decline.

* The Georgian manual Taigana Saakino of the XI-XII centuries,  tells how the fighters were always carry a leather bag that held Kumeli: a paste of honey which, mixed with some water, quenched the hunger of the fighters and energized them.

* The bee venom among other actions, is a X radiation protector.

* A square decimeter of comb, raised on both sides by the bees to store honey in the hive, has a total of 800 cells.

* The Assyrians preserved the deads in honey. The emperor Alexander the Great (Macedon) was preserved in honey; the Byzantine Emperor Justinian was embalmed with honey and beeswax.

* Plato wrote that honey was sacrificed to the gods: the fruits were smeared with honey to sacrifice.

* Honey was the food in the wilderness of St. John the Baptist.

* After an ancient custom of nations in the infant's mouth, before being put to the breast, they pour a little honey.

* The honey was part of tribute of peoples under Rome rule.

* An important part of Moldova and Romanian Country tribute paid to the Ottoman Empire was established in quantities of honey and wax. In addition, the Turkish merchants roamed the two Romanian principalities, buying not only sheep (for pilaf and kebab), but also honey and beeswax. The gold coins with which the Romanian princes paid the tribute, missing the gold mines of the above mentioned pricipalities, came not only from herds of cattle which were sold to Italy and Germany, but also from great quantities of honey and wax sold in many parts of Europe.

* The historical documents of Moldova show the increasing importance of growing the bees. If a peasant was to establish an apiary (“prisaca”, in the language of the time), the land he  received on the royal domains, aristocratic or monastic, corresponded to the surface of a circle whose radius was the distance he could throw a hatchet from.

* The farmers from the monastic estates were required to pay a tribute consisting of wax and honey.

* The beekeepers of Middle Ages Moldova produced an interesting greenish wax, very appreciated for making candles in Venice Doges palaces because it burned without smoke and more, the burning scented the air.

* A valuable bee product, but to which is accorded too little attention - not only by consumers but also by beekeeper - is the cap (also called caps). It is the bees wax film covering each cell when honey is enough "baked" (ie it has been brought to the concentration of carbohydrates which ensures the stability and conservation for winter). When the beekeepers extract the honey, before placing the combs into the centrifuge, the wax coating shall be removed. They obtain wax caps together with the honey in contact with them. Usually, the beekeepers filter the honey and the caps are melted to get wax. In doing so, the damage is greater than the benefit.

* The cap contains, among the many other substances, an antibiotic substance that can not be replicated in laboratories. The direct sunlight destroys this substance even if only after a short exposure. Therefore the cap of the combs must not be made in the sun and the pots with caps, especially if they are colorless, must not be exposed to direct sunlight.

* The cap has all the therapeutic effects of the honey, but it is superior in treating many oral diseases: gingivitis, gingival bleeding, periodontitis, geographical or saburral tongue, candidiasis or various other infections.

* The cap is irreplaceable in the disorders of the respiratory tracts: rhinitis, nasopharyngitis, laryngitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, bronchial asthma, sinusitis, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, tuberculosis etc.

* The Royal Jelly is produced by the glands located in the head of the nurse bees and is secreted in a hypopharyngeal way. With that the bees feed in the egg stage all the eggs laid by the queen in the comb cells from which will grow the three castes of the colony: bees, queens and drones. When the eggs pass to the larval stage, royal jelly will receive only the ones from which the queen will be exit from.

* The biochemistry, pharmacology and medicine do not know any other substance, natural or synthetic chemical, more valuable to the human health than the royal jelly.

* The Royal Jelly in its entirety commensurate structure can not be produced even by the most sophisticated laboratories in the world. A single laboratory can produce it and know exactly when and how much should be given. This laboratory, inimitable, is the nurse bee.

* In a small volume of complex substance the royal jelly contains amino acids (including all essential), enzymes, directly assimilable carbohydrates, enzymes, acids, vitamins, minerals, hormones, growth factors and other substances with antibiotic, bactericide , antiviral, antitumor character etc..

* For the sake of therapeutic purposes the royal jelly should be given under competent guidance. As there is no other substance that provides so many opportunities for the therapeutic intervention, equally risky is to take this beekeeping product as self-medication or incompetently recommended. The gamma globulin (gammaglobulin), for example, contained in the royal jelly, can cause fibrosis (including the uterine fibroids), the onset of autoimmune diseases, female hiperestrogenemia, impotence etc. The best indicator for giving the royal jelly is an analysis which is not too used – the serum protein electrophoresis, but interpreted within clinical context.

* The pollen, the male element of the flower, thanks to its important role in growing the brood bee is called by the beekeepers "the bee bread".

* The pollen, the male element of the flower, is a veritable cocktail of amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, hormones, DNA and RNA acids, etc… . A great lover of pollen, the Frenchman Alain Caillas, in the work “Pollen” writes with full justification: "The secrets of the pollen are the secrets of the plants that nature let us have handy to treat many of the diseases that mankind suffer from . The people are able to build atomic bombs that could destroy the world, but failed, although they tried it, to recreate in the laboratory any pollen grain including all its constitutive parts".

* Viewed, the pollen appears to be a flock with the colour of the pigments of the plant of which it was collected by the bees. In reality, each flock is made up of thousands of pollen grains, each with the size of 10-50 microns.

* To bring in the hive of the honeycombs the amount of 0.750 g of pollen, a bee makes 50 flights, each time bringing two balls weighing 0.015 mg.

* When the pollen foraging bees return to the hive with two balls of pollen placed on the front legs, the young bees that have not yet flown, unload it.

* A pollen grain consists of a nucleus (the major part which is important of the alimentary and medication point of view), which is protected by two shells: the outer shell, called exine, which is lysed by gastric juices and the inner shell, called intine. This coating, however, can not be digested by gastric juices – it is a model of plants adaptation in their will to survive and multiply, protecting their nuclei. The intine, however, has a large number of holes: their size can be predicted by anyone, if you keep in mind that the whole pollen grain can not be seen with the naked eye (what you see with the naked eye is the flock of pollen which is composed by the union of grains compacted by the secretions of the bees). If the digestion is poor, it can not efficiently use the therapeutic and alimentary valences o the pollen because it can not extract the nucleus through the holes of the intine.

* To increase the opportunities of the digestion for capitalizing the pollen it is better for  the last to be mixed in honey, but at least one day before eating.

* The Russian academician L. Titanic was the first scientist who, following an accident which somehow drew the attention to the bioactive value of the pollen, initiated a study of the people whose age exceeded 100 years and found that the most numerous longevous people were regularly consuming bee pollen.

* Because the pollen has a high food and medication value (preventive and therapeutic), we make some clarifications, resulted, beyond the study of the literature in speciality, especially from the experience of our apitherapy center :

- the pollen, as the bee product with the highest allergen potential, those who want  eat it should take an allergy test; if they do not take the test - and most do not take it - it is very useful the policy of the "small steps ", ie: start eating pollen only by a few balls, because an allergic reaction, if any, since the allergens are quantitatively minimal, won’t have significant, risky symptoms. In the following days, take one teaspoon tip, increasing gradually to a full teaspoon (about 4-5 days); at the the first allergic manifestation quit it and check on medical way both the substance that caused the allergy and the opportunity to immunization of the allergen diagnosed;

- the frequency of the persons who are allergic to pollen, in our statistics, is 2.1%;

- a finding that is ours: there are people who are respiratory allergic to the pollen and they know this from what happens to them when in the air float the pollens of the plants (these allergies have the "supremacy" in number), but there are people who suffer from digestive allergies to the pollen; over the years of clinic apitherapy I met only two cases where both forms of choice are taken by the same person; from the total of 2.1% of the allergic individuals we recorded I found that the digestive allergies are much less common than the respiratory ones and therefore a person who manifests respiratory allergy to the pollen can eat it, but surely it is better to follow the policy of "the small steps", or take the test allergy (although it is less certain than "the policy" proposed);

- the general rule is that, as shown in the comparative studies we have undertaken, the suspicion that a person is respiratory or digestive allergic must be based on his/her history, the history and its interpretation within the clinical context, the eosinophils titer (detected by WBC counts), IgE and IgA immunoglobulins and ionic calcium; this is one of the reasons why, in several published studies, especially in the medical PhD thesis, I argued the need to introduce, among the laboratory routine analyses, the serum protein electrophoresis with the detection of the immunoglobulins, and also not only detect and assess the calcium according to the  total serum calcium, but the ionic calcium, too, whose amount depends mainly on the percentage amount of the serum albumin; the allergic individuals  - respiratory and digestive, too – present the serum hypoalbuminemia, hypergammaglobulinemia and ionic hypocalcemia;

- at a daily consumption at a body weight between 50 and 70 kg of about 10 grams (two tablespoons) of pollen, from apiprophylaxis and therapeutic point of view, with an average duration of three months, we recorded no secondary dysfunction; there have been clinical cases, where, in some conditions, the patients consumed daily for 5-6 months, each 25 grams of pollen, with notable benefits and no secondary results;

- many people who have experienced digestive allergies to the simply consumed pollen have not had any allergic reaction to eating pollen mixed with honey;

- in consuming the pollen must be taken into account that it has an androgenisant effect, in which case, depending on the clinical approach, it should be limited (for example hipoestrogenemia) or supplemented (for example feminizing cirrhosis);

* Can the pollen be consumed as beneficial food without specific therapeutic recommendation ? Of course. A teaspoon of pollen per day, consumed periodically or regularly helps the healthy growth of every child. The young people, the adults and elders can always use, and periodically, too (for one or two months, with breaks of one to two months), 10-15 grams of pollen in one to two daily rounds. The protein balancing, remineralizing, vitaminisant effects, etc. will be easily noticed.

* The pollen reaching the spoon of the consumer, although the honey bees gather it for the brood feeding, never reaches the hive. Of course, against the will of the honey bees! When the beekeepers harvest the pollen, they obstruct the bee entrance with a drilled terminal strip (plate), so that the bees coming from the field, entering the hive on these holes rub their feet to their edge and the pollen falls within a collecting tray. It is taken by the beekeeper in the evening, so the dew does not wet it more (the pollen has already the existing moisture of the flowers it was picked from). The pollen harvested this way shall be dried by different methods, in order to protect its alimentary and medicinal qualities.

* A frequent question: how to choose a quality pollen? The well dry pollen, when you pour it from the vessel in which it was stored must run like the beans of the dry wheat. If large or small lumps of pollen appear, a sort of conglomerates of pollen balls, then it was not dry, in which case it becomes toxic and can detemin serious digestive infections.

* Another question, as frequent as the first one, but involving a more nuanced response: which is the pollen we need ? There are monofloral pollens collected only from a specific plant. These are one color pollens. But the most pollens are polyfloral pollens. The different colors of the pollen balls delight the eye - from white to black, they can cover the entire range of the known colors. These colors depends on the pigments of all the plants that can be simultaneously collecting sources for the bees. It is good to note that the pollens, whatever they could be, have common features resulting from their plant structure and also from the additions given by the bees during the harvest, which we tangentially discussed above. Each type of pollen, however, carries with it the active principles of the plants from which it was collected and their color pigments, too. For example, the pollen of dandelion flowers, yellow, slightly bitter taste, is effective, for example, in the liver disease. The monofloral pollens should be usually recommended by the apitherapeutists, but they can also be consumed as food stimulant, without any recommendation and without any risk, except the avoidance of the allergy states. We believe that the most effective pollens are the polyfloral ones, to which are added, mixed in different proportions, depending on the specific clinical case, the monofloral pollens. Not all the polyfloral pollens are identical, as a result of the plants in a particular area of ​​location of the apiaries, currently having similarities and differences to those collected elsewhere. Of the apiprophylactic point of view, consumed as food, the polyfloral pollens are the best: they contain the nutritive and therapeutic principles of a variety of plants. Also, they contain a large variety of pigments, to which more and more medical researches grant in the recent years an important antioxidant role, effectively even in the cancerous diseases.

* The bee bread, another valuable bee product, less known than pollen is produced in much smaller quantities. It comes from the pollen the foraging bees hive brought. The young bees detach the pollen flocks from their feet and crumble it with the mandibles, adding extra enzymes. Then, through movements like the ram blows, it shall be pushed in the comb cells by repeated beatings with the head, filling them two thirds. In the heat and humidity of the hive, this pollen pressed in the cells shall undergo a brief controlled fermentation. Now the pollen becomes the "bee bread", being used by the bee to feed the bee brood. To conserve it on longer times, the bees shall fill the  empty third of the cells in which there is the bee bread with honey, then cover the (plugged them) with a thin layer of wax, just as they do with the cells filled with honey, when the last was brought, by winnowing, to the planned water content.

* The bee bread is a bee product whose efficiency is higher, even double that the one of the pollen. First, this is due to the addition of enzymes that the bees add in the course of the fragmentation and concentration in the cells. But especially important is that during the contolled  fermentation the nucleus exits through the pores of the intine, so that it becomes more "open" to the gastric juices.

* The apilarnil, another bee product, is a larval triturated product, got from the larvae of the drones, harvested before their capping. In the composition of the apilarnil may be also found the supplies of food the nurse bees have lodged in the cells. It is necessary to specify that in the course of the growth of the brood of the three castes of the bee colony, when they pass to the nymph stage they shall be confined in their cells with a film of wax, but together with a reserve of food. Of course, the air can penetrate the wax layer, or the nymphs would die. When the nymphs reach the maturity of their training as individuals, they gnaw the wax film and exit out (hatch) of the cells where they were formed.

* The apilarnil, due to its properties, is called by the older beekeepers “the bull milk".

* The apilarnil in various presentations, is better to be given upon the recommendation of the qualified apiterapeutists.

* The administration of the apilarnil as self-medication, may induce unwanted effects. For example, being an androgenisant, it can cause hirsutism, masculine thickened voice and obesity, menstrual disorders etc..

* The propolis is a bee product of a great importance. The word comes from the ancient Greek language by joining two words: pro - for and polis - city, ie, in free translation, for the city. The city of the bees is the hive.

* The propolis comes from a natural resin, harvested by the bees from the buds, bark and  leaves tails of the trees like poplar, willow, oak, elm, beech, pine, fir, chestnut, ash, alder etc. This resin shall become propolis only after the bees add to it a certain percentage of wax, pollen, certain enzymes and other glandular secretions, plus the conditioners and plant volatile oils.

* For "the city" of the bees the propolis performs a variety of functions. The bees use it for sealing the cracks of the hives (thus defeating the bacteria that could accommodate therein), for reducing the bee entrance depending on the colony powers or near the close cold of late autumn, for embalming the killed mice (after the mice were submitted to the “acupuncture” with venom), for fixing the frames - between them and on the edges of the hive, for "gilding" the cells of the new combs and also of the combs cells after the brood hatching, but before the bee queen  lays other eggs in them (it is a preventive health provision, antibacterial and antifungal). The volatile substances of the propolis maintain a sterile environment in the bee colony (it seems that in the apiary, within a radius of a few meters, the air is purified by the effect of the volatile substances of the propolis).

* As I said, for millennia, but to a large extent nowadays, too, when the man is so much involved in their lives, the bees families had and still have a self-sufficient existence. Perhaps, if they had what is meant by the concept of slogan, the bees slogan would be "by ourselves !" Over the millennia they brought to perfection the family organization, which, although the family consists of tens of thousands of individuals, they act as a whole, as an organism. Through millennia of adaptability they have selected from the nature not only the the best food for their needs, but they also experienced and harvested those substances that had a role in ensuring their health and their city. Such a substance, particularly effective in the prophylaxis of the the health of the colony is the propolis.

* The collected propolis is brought into the hive on the rear feet of the foraging bees which, in order to be able to arrange it in the form of some small balls, knead it with their own secretions. On the arrival at the hive, other bees start "unloading" it, on gradually detached pieces : if someone would try to take all the propolis from the bee foot at once he would tear the bee foot. To unload the propolis from the foraging bee will take a few hours. In the unloading course the bees submit it to a milling process, in which they knead it with a little pollen, wax and their own secretions, then they lay it in places previously planned. Therefore, the popolis is not a beekeepig product which is exclusively vegetable, since the bee greatly contribute to its biochemical structure.

* The propolis is very slightly soluble in water but it is soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, propylene glycol, benzene, dimethyl sulfoxide, ethylene diamine.

* The propolis contains: 27 minerals, like the pollen - in areas affected by the industrial or automotive traffic it may contain an increased risk of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) - unsaturated aromatic acids, a total of 14 flavones - some have a definite antitumour action - a variable number of amino acids, monosugars, enzymes, soluble and fat-soluble vitamins (A and E), etc..

* The pharmacodynamic properties of the propolis are multiple: inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antiviral, antioxidant, anesthetics, antitumor, antibacterial, antifungal, antiradioactive, immunomodulatory etc. Particularly important is that, properly managed, all these actions of the propolis – a fact featuring all the honey bee therapeutic products - occur simultaneously, holistically.

* To obtain the desired therapeutic effects through the use of the propolis depend on many conditions: the optimal harvesting and storage, the compliance with the criteria for the preparation of various pharmaceutical forms of administration, according to the therapeutic target tracking, the particularities of each patient, etc...

* The propolis has a certain allergen potential, which is apparently induced by its content in pollen. According to some studies, the propolis may cause allergies in about 3% of cases in which it is administered. After our studies, the people allergic to propolis do not exceed 0.5%.

            * The propolis and pollen contain a large number of substances, such as the pollen and propolis allergy testing can be quite inaccurate. As for the pollen, too, shall be effective the initial administration of very small quantities, increased with caution to the recommended doses.

* The bee literature, like that apitherapeutic, too, when discussing the propolis, refers mainly to the special qualities of the Brazilian propolis. I studied myself, too, this propolis and  compared with that obtained by us in the sub-Carpathian locality of Gorj county, namely the village Bălănești. Usually, this propolis is mixed - before giving to it various pharmaceutical forms – with the one harvested from the apiaries with which we make the pastoral at the fir trees in the mountains of Gorj. I also studied the reported clinical cases in which the Brazilian propolis was used. I found that using the propolis from Bălănești I could intervene more effectively in a wider range of problems, some more serious than those reported with the use of the Brazilian propolis. In the chapter "Researches and Clinical Cases", I have demonstrated the veracity of these claims.

* The wax, another important beekeeping product is produced by the young bees that have not yet flown outside the hive.

* The wax is a secretion product of the waxing glands situated in pairs of two, on the last four abdominal rings, each gland consisting of 10000-20000 secretory cells, which start functioning after the three days of the bees hatching from the cells where they have been grown. The wax is secreted in very small and fragile flakes, to which the bees add secretions of other mandibular glands, thoracic, cervical and labial, especially lipase and protease enzymes. The small wax flakes, taken by the feet and knead with the mandibles are shaped and employed by joining them to build the honeycombs.

* To obtain 1 kg of wax are needed about 4,000,000 small lakes, whose weight fluctuates between 0.2 and 2 mg.

* The wax is solid, but it melts at temperatures of 64-660C.

* The color of the bees wax , depending on the flora pigments, but also by the more or less accurate working they have to cross through, may be white, yellow, brown, gray, orange.

* As food, the people can use the wax by chewing the combs filled with honey or the cap. No one will get hurt if some or even all the chewed wax sealant will be swallowed.

* The wax matter in cosmetics, painting (it was used, for example, as an ingredient in the famous painting frescoes from Pompeii), and in some industries.

* The venom, which makes the bees needle to be feared is a product of the bees secretion as it is their only weapon of defense against any aggressor.

* Stored in a bag linked to the needle, when the bee stings, in the place of the puncture is secreted an amount of 0.3 mg of fluid venom (as dry matter, reaching 0.1 mg).

* The bee venom is, among others, an example of the complex of substances that can be focused by this real flying laboratory in a very low volume. Thus, in 0.3 mg of venom, of which 88% is represented by water, are concentrated approximately 100 substances: peptides, active amines, monosugars, acids, enzymes, minerals, essential oils etc..

* From the ancient times, the bee venom has been used by pricking the affected place to treat the rheumatism.

* The bee venom, through apipuncture (bee stings applied directly on the site) is 100 times higher than the hydrocortisone without presenting its secondary consequences.

* The bee venom can be used therapeutically through apipuncture (direct stinging of the bees), by injection, or by various ointments (one of the most effective, perhaps the most effective of those which are produced is the Romanian one, called Apireven and produced by Integrated Beekeeping Factory of Harnaj).

* The bee venom, however, should be cautiously given and only by specialists, since it has an allergen potential that beyond the minimum effects caused by a habitual or occasional bee sting can have severe consequences. If for the most people who are pierced the effects are only local (edema and erythema hyperemia) in some people can be caused systemic effects (generalized rash, difficulty in breathing, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and so on), but more serious anaphylactic effects could occur (death due to respiratory collapse and cardiovascular effects).

* The bee venom has, in addition to beneficial effects, major cotraindications  for the people affected by: allergy, diabetes, tuberculosis, brucellosis, syphilis, epilepsy, encephalitis, myocardial infarction, endocarditis, myocarditis, atherosclerosis, nephritis, hepatitis, acute purulent infections etc.

* The pregnant women should avoid the bee stings.

* The people suffering from anemia should avoid the bee venom therapy because it has a significant hemolytic action (it lyses, destroys the red blood cells).