- The Importance of Bees
The Importance of Bees
The Importance of Bees
The bees place in our world is important beyond our understanding.
The small little insect that works so tirelessly and quietly around us certainly is one of the reasons, if not a main reason, for the possibility of human development on earth. Without them, the development of life on earth, as we know it now, would have been much different and the conditions for human development may not have existed. The conditions we are talking about here are the appearance of the flower bearing plants and pollinators, with the bees, being the crown jewel of the pollinators. The bees, the flowers, human beings and everything that developed alongside humans are all an interconnected series of events over an enormous amount of time.
In the writings, artwork and symbolism of cultures and religions around the world from time immemorial are references to the bees and the substances they collect in Nature and make in their bodies, namely honey, bee pollen, bee propolis, royal jelly and wax. These substances, along with the bees and the beehive, have been held in high esteem throughout human history in every part of the world. The references are almost always of renewal, rebirth and new beginnings. The references are almost always about the good, positive, reinforcing things of life. They are gifts and blessings.
“Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.”
Some people believe that the Bees and Flowers developed at the same moment in time because they needed each other. Indeed, perhaps the beauty in flowers was developed as a mechanism to attract pollinators and lure them in their direction. The bees diet is flower based collecting pollen and nectar from the flower. Much of our diet is flower based in the fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables we eat that the bees pollinate. Flowers represent and symbolize the very definition of beauty on earth. The colors of every kind and fragrances of flowers cannot be reproduced. They can only be imitated. It is Nature and it is complex. That is where the bees go to work for their food.
In “The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness: An Anthology of Writings By and About the Dalai Lama”, His Holiness states;
“I am attracted to bees because I like honey---it is really delicious. Their product is something we cannot produce, very beautiful, isn’t it? I exploit them too much, I think. Even these insects have certain responsibilities, they work together very nicely. They have no constitution, they have no law, no police, nothing, but they work together effectively. This is because of nature. Similarly, each part of a flower is not arranged by humans but by nature. The force of nature is something remarkable. We human beings, we have constitutions, we have law, we have a police force, we have religion, we have many things. But in actual practice, I think we are behind those small insects.”
Bernard Jensen, Ph.D., one of the founders of the “alternative health” movement states in his book, “Bee Well Bee Wise”, that, “The bees are the greatest life workers of any community I have studied in nature……I believe sincerely that man will never progress until he gets into the work that will never harm his fellow man.” You will understand why this statement was included in the following paragraphs.
Most of nature lives in the “chase or be chased” or the “kill or be killed” life cycle of the food chain, where one thing is getting eaten by those things that are stronger and they, in turn, are getting eaten by the next stronger entity. This has taken place over immense amounts of time and countless numbers of eating species. Everything is an eating machine and EVERYTHING IS EATING EACH OTHER UP. Everything is preying on the things it can prey on. Taking life for one living thing to live and another living thing to die. Most all the eating species have evolved by the actual demise of other things. The metaphor here is, even the strongest die and become fodder for the weakest or lowest on the food chain. Nothing wrong with it. It is just the way it is. It is sometimes called the “Grand Design”.
BUT WAIT A MINUTE!
THE BEES GO A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
The bees follow another plan. It is, in many ways, opposite of that “Grand Design”. Their relationship with their world is one of benefit and enhancement. The bees relationship with the plants it visits is mutually beneficial. The consequence of this relationship is the bees make more flowers by cross pollination which, in turn, makes more food produced from those plants. Just a little different from the other species, including humans, that are in the “eating each other up” “Grand Design”. This is a statistically unique place the bees occupy. The bees are in a full blown embrace with Nature that is probably difficult for us in “the other cycle” to understand fully. The bees do not harm. How unique is that!?
Everyone knows of the bees but few people actually know much about them. The historical reverence toward the bees, the beehive and the products of the beehive, as stated above, does not hold true in today’s world. In fact, the bees and the substances they collect have been forgotten or downgraded in the industrial and agricultural applications and salesmanship of the present day world. They are more an afterthought of little importance to most. Why? Could all the reverence of tribes and cultures, north and south, east and west, from the beginning, could they have been all wrong? Do we know more now?
I don’t think so. It probably boils down in large part to the fact that, the industrialized world operates on patents, or exclusive ownership of things for profitability. Anybody can own a beehive. It is non patentable and non exclusive. The industrialized world has no use for the beehive or the development of its products.
POLLEN: THE GOLD DUST OF NATURE
Bees fly to flowers, and inside this incredible environment, they search for their food, pollen and nectar. The pollen from the flower is the genetic material of the plant. This pollen is the basic primal energy representing one of the most powerful urges in nature, that is, the urge to reproduce. Pollen truly is the “gold dust of nature”. It is the culmination of the life force of plants. This life force, when unleashed through cross pollination largely done by the bees, is the beginning of much of the foods that insects, birds, other animals and humans have developed on.
Bee Pollen is a biodiverse, complex substance of plant material that when a chemical analysis is done, it shows a wide array of components in the minerals, vitamins, proteins, enzymes and due to the complexity shown in nature, plenty of other things not yet identified by science. This biodiversity is represented by the bees visiting hundreds, if not thousands of different flowers of different species of plants. The bees gather pollen and nectar in the valleys, up the mountains, in the backyard, down the street, red flowers, blue, purple, white flowers. Where there are flowers you will find bees. These phytochemicals of plant origin, pollen and nectar, inheritantly contain a broad spectrum of components. Go to Arizona, go to Uruguay, go to Sweden and Mozambique. The bees are collecting pollen and nectar in all these places from countless flowers, all different. This is called biodiversity. Bee pollen is possibly the most biodiverse substance on earth. The combined chemical composition of all those plants makes for a complexity and synergy that only nature can produce.
In the book “Leaves of Morya’s Garden II (Illumination)” this is said about flowers and pollen, “earthly flowers are the sole living bond between Earth and Heaven. In the creation of floral pollen there are precipitated, as it were, crystals of prana. Without frivolity one can say that in flowers the Heaven settles down upon earth.
If the earth were deprived of flowers, half its vitality would disappear.”
WHY IS BIODIVERSITY IMPORTANT?
It is the Way of Nature
The question is often asked, “Why is biodiversity important?” The answer is simple when one looks closely at the world we are living in and the directions man has taken. We live in a world of mega agri-industry, mega pharmaceutical drug companies and processed to the maximum foods. The demands on these industries call for sameness. The companies produce and the public demands, sameness. When you buy something now you want it to be the same as last time. When we buy food or drugs or vitamins in New York we want it to be the same when we buy them in Los Angeles or Flagstaff. Synthetics is one way to make sameness possible. Certain ways of processing make sameness possible. Singling out one ingredient, taking it out of a whole food substance that it came from, is another way to make sameness possible. Synthetics, over processing and the single isolated ingredient processing methods of food and pharmaceuticals, have taken over these industries, in many cases to our detriment. These processes take us down a road that goes directly against the natural world we live in. In nature, there are many parts and pieces to everything that collectively make a whole. These parts and pieces are all interrelated and exist as one organism, not as separate, stand alone substances. Nature is not a stand alone situation. Everything is interconnected. Taking one of those pieces out and making it a stand alone situation is how the modern industrial world works. That equates to sameness. There are many good arguments for sameness and it is necessary in many instances but as we move into the future it will become harder and harder to find the biodiverse, complex substances that are the real representatives of nature. We need these whole complex substances like bee pollen, propolis, royal jelly and honey to help keep a balance against the overpowering pathways that industry and commerce is taking us down. Their salesman are everywhere touting their goods. Theirs is an unnatural world and a world of total sameness. Remember. Nothing in Nature is ever the same, no snowflake, no plant, no animal or human being is the same. Everything, at the very least, has slight variations. That is the “Way of Nature”. It is also why biodiversity is so important and the complex physical/chemical make up of bee pollen is the manifestation of biodiversity.
Propolis and Honey
Complex and Diverse
This diversity also manifests itself in bee propolis and honey. Propolis is another complex primal material from the plant world. The bees gather sap from trees and bushes. Propolis is principally sap, which is tree resin, and beeswax with small amounts of pollen. The resin is the fluid that moves through the plant. This fluid is essentially the immune system of the plant and when these resins are compromised, by unfavorable weather conditions such as drought, the plants exist in an unhealthy state. The plants immune system is weakened when not enough sap/resin is produced and the plant becomes vulnerable to any number of threatening conditions. The bees collect this resin, convert it into propolis and have various uses for it inside the beehive, not the least of which can be described as a part of the internal immune system of the beehive. Bees take the immune system of the plant life they visit and use it as part of their own immune system inside the hive. Again, propolis is a highly complex, biodiverse compound of numerous plants combined to make a substance the bees use to combat bacterial growth and the spread of disease in the highly populated environment of the beehive. It must be effective because the bees have existed for at least 100 million years and have had to combat numberless threatening conditions over that span of time.
In James Fearnley’s book “Bee Propolis”, he states, “The beehive is a symbol of simpler substances derived from the lower order of the plant world are elevated and transformed by the bee into substances appropriate for a higher order of existence.”
Again, propolis, like pollen, is the natural way and the natural way is complex and biodiverse unlike the manufactured world of singularity and sameness. By using these products of the beehive, humans are bringing the variability of plant life and nature into their own being.
Honey. Just think. A bee leaves the darkness of the beehive, goes out in the light of day, and flies over the ground until she gets to this beautiful flower, lands on the flower and goes inside. What could be better than that? And while there, in the back of the flower (that, by the way, smells real good too), is a little puddle of clean, pure and sweet nectar. A bouquet of smells and tastes. Totally underrated in todays world of ultra refined sugars from cane and corn that have a detrimental effect on your health. Over processed and over used in the food processing world to the point it is hard not to eat these substances. Honey stands outside that and has history to back it up.
“My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste”, Proverbs 24:13
“Now, the upward rays of the sun are the honey cells above. The secret teachings of the Upanishads are the bees. Brahman (Om) is flower. The water is nectar.” Chhandogya Upanishad: Part Three Chapter V: The Honey doctrine
Royal Jelly is a Mystery
Bees create royal jelly from their own bodies. As are many things in nature, it is difficult to describe and explain this substance. It is a “milk” like substance fed to all the larva, drones, workers and queens but only the queens through their life. Queen bees are made not born and most of the reason for this appears to be her diet of royal jelly. Apparantly, because of her royal jelly diet she lives much longer and is much bigger than the other bees. Why this is, is a mystery. It is the only demonstratable substance known in nature that actually extends life, in this case, the life of the bee. Bees not fed royal jelly, workers and drones, live much shorter lives of 6 weeks, more or less, compared to the possible years of the queen bee. There is no identifiable reason to explain this phenomenon.
CC Pollen Co hopes to educate and bring an understanding of nature and the beehive and the unique and unusual products of the bees and nature into the minds and bodies of humanity. As the modern world moves forward in the direction of mega industry, mega agriculture and mega pharmaceuticals the balance of our individual existence will increasingly become more vulnerable and dangerous. CC Pollen Co founder Royden Brown stated, “WHILE HEALTH ISN’T EVERYTHING, WITHOUT HEALTH, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS”. In the mega agri-industrial world we live in of denatured, processed foods and drugs, those words ring louder and louder with each passing day. The beehive’s complexity stands as a natural balance against the onslaught of the “mega’s”. The bees and their place in our world is vitally important beyond our understanding.
“bees are influenced most of all by cosmic forces…….by way of the beehive, the entire cosmos can find its way into human beings and make them sound in mind and body” from Rudolf Steiner.