Subject: ! ATTENTION ! rOYAL jELLY

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 95 20:57:05 PST

===========================================================================
Subj: Re: !  ATTENTION !  rOYAL      Conf: (77) alt.herbs
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN>JUAN <[email-masked]> wrote:
IN>>What is good for?  Where can I buy some?

IN>If you don't know what it is for, WHY do you want to buy some?

IN>Deb

There is another problem with this, Although many people can use Royal
Jelly, I and many others can not, being alergic to Bees, I can not have
Raw Honey although the processed honey is ok for me.

There are products that you have to be leary of.

B*B
---
 þ SLMR 2.0 þ Witches in a Hot tub : A self Cleaning Coven.

---

From: [email-masked] (BusyKnight)
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 1995 16:53:56 GMT

FOLKLORE HERB People: Please foregive the discussion
of non-HERB things like honeybee royal jelly.  But being a
beekeeper, I just thought I might post my $0.02 worth:

[email-masked] wrote:
> Although many people can use Royal Jelly,
This is very true.  RJ is used in a big sorta way in
China, Japan, etc. (what for is anybody guess).  As
I've said previously, its been analyzed and doesn't
contain anything very unusual except a couple of
the rarer fatty acids.

B*B makes the following comment/observation:
> I and many others can not, being alergic to Bees, I can not have
When most people (or even witches) talk about "being alergic to Bees,"
they are in reference to bee *stings*.  Most everyone is alergic to
bee stings to a greater or lesser extent.  The sting organ in their
bodies (which BTW, only the female honeybees sting; drones {males}
have no stinger) can produce a very painful venom.  However, this
should not be confused with any kind of alergic reaction due to other
causes associated with Apis (honeybees). The venom acts on the 
nervous system in humans.

The distinction between "Raw" honey and "Processed" honey is not
very much in the way of  *processing*.  But makes a lot of difference
in tastes.  Processed honey is really not a lot different than the way
raw honey is handled.  The big difference is that "processed" honey
has been heated and much more finely filtered.  Processed honey is
usually a blend of several different honeys which help to give it a 
uniform colour/taste/flavor, etc.  Whereas "raw" honey will usually
have a unique taste based on the flora sources that the bees have
worked.  The colour of raw honey can & does vary greatly for the same
reason.  All honey is produced by the honeybees lapping up nectar from
blooming flowers, shrubs and even trees. It is converted to honey from
nectar by the bees mixing enzymes from their body (in an organ called
the honey stomach) and then evaporating excess water from the
resulting liquid (thus,  you have honey).  Processed honey as I said,
has been heated.  This is done primarily to retard honey
crystallization and increase shelf life for the consumers. When honey
begins to crystallize, the honey has *NOT* gone bad: only the sugars
have begun to fall out of solution.  Just heat up the honey & its good
as new!  Processed honey does do one other thing (& most people
would find this not very beneficial):  The heating process kills a lot
of the naturally occurring yeasts and enzymes found in raw honey.
Honey has a ph toward acidity and as such, does not support bacteria
growth (one reason that honey doesn't 'go bad').

>There are products that you have to be leary of.
Perhaps B*B's experience was with some 'bad honey'.  Hummm... it
didn't "go bad", it was made bad by the bees!   Not for them but for
us humans.  There are a couple of flower sources that can produce
dangerous honey (i.e., honey that could make you sick).  One such
fairly common source in America is Mountain Laurel.  Nectar from this
plant makes honey that the bees love but can make humans ill.  It is
not very common to find this as a problem though.  Other plants are
just the opposite of what you might think.  The poison sumac family
(poison ivy, etc) makes for a GREAT tasting honey.  Raw honey will
have some traces of native pollen (whereas 'processed' honey has
had this removed via the filtering process).  It is possible that B*B
had less than a positive reaction to the trace amounts of pollen in
the raw honey that was consummed.  But again, this would depend on
the flora sources that the bees worked.  This is a very *regional*
thing.  Some people actually take small amounts of local pollen to
help their allergies!

BusyKnight
Dallas, Texas