Natural bee products and their apitherapeutic applications

Abstract

The honey bee has been of enormous importance to humanity for thousands of years. Many different bee products used for traditional and complementary therapies, also known as apitherapy, are currently available. This chapter will discuss honey bee products and their apitherapeutic properties. Honey, bee pollen, propolis, bee bread (perga), royal jelly, and bee venom are all important natural products with numerous different active biological features, such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiviral, antiinflammatory, and antitumoral. These biological activities are highly variable and depend on many different factors, such as floral sources, geographical location, beekeeper performance, environmental conditions, the race of bees concerned, etc. This chapter will discuss the composition, and active biological effects of various natural bee products. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.