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Medical data is for informational purposes only. You should always consult your family physician, or one of our referral physicians prior to treatment.

Supplement to

The Art of Getting Well

Bee Pollen: The Perfect Food

Sources are given in references.

Authors of contributions\quotations are alphabetically arranged;

major author, if any, is underlined.

Gh. Baltan, Royden Brown, G. Calcaianu, Alain Callias,

Ph.D., Ernesto Contreras, M.D., Leo Conway, M.D., F. Cozma, Dr.

Lars-Erik Essen, M.D., Walter O. Grotz, L.J. Hayes, M.D., Dr.

Peter Hernuss, Petrovich Ioyrish, Noel Johnson, Remi Korchemny,

Dr. Gosta Leander, G. Liebold, Dr. Izet Osmanagic, L. Pokrajcic,

William Robinson, Dr. A. Saenz, Gh. Salajan, James F. Scheer,

H.W. Schmidt, M.D., Sigmund Schmidt, M.D., A. Soliman, F.A.

Soliman/Responsible editor/writer Anthony di Fabio.

Foundation for Eradication of Rheumatoid Disease

AKA The Arthritis Trust of America

7376 Walker Road, Fairview, Tn 37062

Permission to publish granted to Townsend Letter for Doctors, 911 Tyler St., Port

Townsend, WA 98368-6541, August/September 1993, p. 878.

In the search for health one's attention is constantly drawn to

the evolutionary aspects of man's nutritional needs, the so-called

cave-man diet. Everyone knows that man did not have sugarcane

during his stone age -- and probably the only direct source for

fructose, sucrose and glucose was fruit and vegetables -- with the

exception of nectar from flowers and its concentrate, honey from

wild bees.

What I knew of bees and their importance to our health was

virtually zero until a reading of Royden Brown's book, How To Live

The Millennium, available through C.C. Pollen Company

. It is

clear that Royden Brown loves the products of the beehive as a

hobby, a profession and, like some of us, a health nut! It is

furthermore clear that Royden Brown has studied bees and their

products personally, and also has had translated virtually all of the

important scientific papers from every country in the world. I highly

recommend that you purchase a copy of the above mentioned book

for a more thorough reading. This chapter, therefore, will be limited

to a generalized summary of Royden Brown's book -- of what I

didn't know about bees and their products, and how those products

can influence our health. The content herein and all quotes are used

by permission of Royden Brown who also owns the copyright.

Background on Bees and Their Products

"Renowned healers of antiquity employed [honey, bee pollen,

propolis, and royal jelly] . . . . It was when the laboratories of the

world community of nations confirmed that bee pollen contains all

nutrients necessary in human nutrition that an efficient way to

harvest bee pollen for the use of man became a necessity.

"In the course of her work, a pollen forager [the bee] will visit

as many as 1,500 blossoms. A single granule of bee pollen contains

from five hundred thousand to five million live pollen spores.

"Pollen is the male seed of flowers. It is required to fertilize the

plant. The tiny particles consist of 50/1000ths of a millimeter

corpuscles, which are formed at the free end of the stamen. Every

variety flower in the universe puts forth a dusting of pollen.

"Once a honeybee arrives at a flower, she settles on the stamen

and nimbly scrapes off the powdery loose pollen with her jaws and

front legs. She then moistens it with a dab of the honey she brought

with her from the hive.

"When her baskets are fully loaded, the microscopic golden

dust has been tamped down into a single golden granule.

". . . pollen . . . cannot be duplicated in a laboratory.

". . . raw honey in the comb is rich with pollen particles and

bears little resemblance to the honey you find in the supermarket.

". . . , what was needed was a device of some kind which would

dislodge a measure of the pollen as the bees enter the hive, while

permitting the bees to retain a sufficient portion of the life-giving

golden dust for the maintenance of the colony."

Royden Brown invented such a trap. "It is equipped with a

series of scientifically-designed wire grids through which the bees

must pass to gain entrance to the colony. As they make their way

through the grids, approximately sixty percent of the pollen is gently

brushed out of their pollen baskets. It falls through a screen into the

pollen drawer situated beneath the trap.

"[The pollen trap] allows sufficient pollen to pass through the

grids into the colony for the care and feeding of the hive population,

and insures the harvesting of the dryest, cleanest pollen possible.

Moisture-laden wet pollen from low-lying humid areas ferments

quickly, or develops mold. This type of pollen must be heat-treated

immediately to preserve it for use. But high heat processing kills the

enzymes and reduces the nutrient value considerably, transforming

the pollen into a dead food.

"When bee pollen is improperly stored and handled, it will lose

up to 76 percent of its nutritive value within twelve months. The

only satisfactory method of preserving fresh, live bee pollen is

flash-freezing at zero degrees to maintain hive-freshness indefi-

nitely and to preserve all vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients

intact. Allowing pollen to remain in the trap for as little as ten days

results in nutrient loss or worse. Beekeepers who harvest for the

C.C. Pollen Company are required to gather bee pollen two times

per week. Each maintains a large chest-type freezer right alongside

their honey extractors in the bee house. The C.C. Pollen Company

mandates that all freshly gathered pollen be immediately flash-

frozen in small batches.

"Honeybees have a flight range of twelve square miles and are

masters at seeking out sources of pollen and nectar.

"The population of your hive will consist of one queen,

approximately 20 to 100 thousand workers, and a few hundred

drones.

"There are many bee farms in the U.S. which are maintained

only for their honey production. Much of this honey ends up in the

supermarkets as a refined liquid sweet with all the bits of pollen and

propolis strained out. Unfortunately, only a true unrefined raw

honey can be classified as a nutritive food. This type of honey is

getting harder and harder to find. A few unrefined honeys still find

their way into supermarkets, but health food stores are the place to

be certain of finding this unrefined liquid gold, cloudy and rich with

suspended bee pollen.

"The C.C. Pollen Company offers multiblended bee pollen

harvested in environmentally-clean areas where man has not in-

truded with harmful chemicals, or polluted the surrounding coun-

tryside with the by-products of civilization, such as car exhaust and

worse.

"Because it would be a disaster of huge proportions if the

population of their hives were exposed to some of the dangerous

agribusiness chemicals, migrating beekeepers are extremely careful