If you remember I said that I was going down with apparent flu just before Xmas and I was going to take propolis and echinacea. Rather amazingly I got better and wasnt ill over Xmas! In fact this is the first time I have been well when everyone else around me has been down with the flu. Its hardly a statistical analysis but still……my Xmas wasn’t ruined. With the recent cold snap I am hoping that the flu epidemic might abate and I may possibly have got away with it.
On the UFO front I finished my knitted jacket and am just trying to finish a freestyle embroidery of the bayeaux tapestry ( only a segement I hasten to add!) I have been doing some silk painting and that has distracted me.
On another type of UFO, I see that up north there have been reports of ‘strange lights in the sky’ followed by the news that a wind turbine has been damaged and some people are putting this down to a UFO crashing into it as there seems no logical explaination.
I do find it rather bizarre that any aliens can travel millions of miles of interplanatery space only to crash into a wind turbine?
It does seem somewhat prosaic…perhaps they had a learner driver.
Tag Archive | propolis
The acid test!
Now this is the acid test for the propolis. All around me everyone seems to have the flu. It happens every year. I am due to start my leave tomorrow for Xmas. Every year, without fail I get flu the minute I start my leave so that I am poorly all over Xmas. For the past three weeks everyone in my vicinity has been doing their best to pass their germs on….my grandaughter had the flu and spent the night sneezing all over me, my neighbours asked if I had had the flu yet as they had, everyone at work has the flu, in the shopping queue sneezes abound. Its not just that people have the flu but they seem utterly determined to pass it on to me in time for the festive season. People get into the lift and sneeze copiously, I spent three hours in a meeting on Weds and everyone died for the full three hours, consolling themselves that they would be better by Xmas, whenever I am standing anywhere people position themselves next to me and cough and sneeze in my direction. I have the air of a doomed woman. This year, determined not to let them win, I am drowning myself in a sea of Echinacea, Vitamin C and Propolis! Today, right on cue I started to develop a sore throat and a slight sniffle….so far I have lurched through the day going from cold crisis to cold crisis only for it to beat a retreat…..time will tell. I calculate if I go down now I will be at my worst on Xmas Day. Why break the habit of a lifetime? I will let you know my progress, its the acid test as to whether these herbal cures really work.
In the meantime I have treated myself to a niddy noddy. Here is my first skein, up until now its always had to be a ball. I have a definate feeling that I am going to end up getting a spinning wheel. I dont have long enough to live to do everything on a spindle!
I know its not much but its a start!
Honey Show and propolis
Wax rose and propolis tincture
I went to the National Honey Show yesterday and really enjoyed it. I didn’t manange to get to all the things I wanted because I overslept, but I still found it very worthwhile. I went to a workshop on making wax flowers…see my effort. Now to be honest with you I am busy enough as it is, I hardly have time to make wax flowers! Still I enjoyed it, I like trying my hand at something different. I wanted to go to a lecture on propolis but it was so packed that it was spilling out into the corridoor. C’est la vie. I have managed to extract some propolis and have started taking it, but need to get a lot more before I stand any chance of being able to take it regularly.
One of the most interesting books I have read recently is on propolis. It called, unsurpisingly ‘Bee Propolis Natural Healing from the Hive’ by James Fearnley. I have become interested in propolis as a succesor to antibiotics. If we dont stop overprescribing them we are heading for a disaster. I have included instructions on how to prepare propolis in alcohol. I will put up other preparations later. According to Fearnley it can be used as a tincture or as an internal remedy. Take a few drops a day to boost your immune system. Use externally for cuts, grazes etc( I am not sure the alcohol wouldnt sting, I havent tried it yet)
I also bought a book on making Mead. I did try some at a stall and liked it. I need more honey though if I am going to make Mead as well as sell some to pay the costs of beekeeping.
Propolis tincture recipe.
Remove any obvious contaminants for the propolis, such as wood, bees etc.
Cut into small pieces and put in a clean jar with a tight fitting lid. (I used a propolis screen which I put into the freezer for a few hours to make it brittle, it was much easier to remove)
Pour in commercial drinking grade alcohol, 70% proof produces the best results but ordinary spirits such as Vodka or Gin are perfectly acceptable.
To make a 25% alcohol extract you need 250 g of proplis plus 4 times that weight/volume in alcohol- i.e. approx 1 litre. I found that I was only making a very small amount and it worked out that it was just enough alcohol to barely cover the propolis.
Store in a warm dark place for at least a week and shake daily.Optimum extraction takes between ten to fourteen days.
Filter through a fine cloth or a coffee filter.
Place in the fridge for a couple of days and then filter again with the finest filter possible.
Propolis
I read a very interesting book a couple of months ago about the health benefits of propolis. I am usually slightly skeptical about amazing health claims but these are well researched. The problem with propolis is you can’t patent it, so the drug companies are not interested….and it’s the drug companies that fund the vast majority of research in the western health care sector. I teach nursing, and medical ethics among other things at Uni, and I found the book well documented. This prompted me to look into producing my own. For those of you who don’t know what propolis is, it’s a kind of glue bees use in the hive and it has antiseptic and antifungal properties among others. In a world moving towards the post-antibiotic era I really don’t feel this sort of thing should be overlooked because of commercial interests.
Consequently I bought some propolis screens for a couple of my hives. The bees take one look at the mesh and start filling all the gaps (bees dont like gaps!) At this time of year I use Apistan to reduce the number of varroa mite and I suddenly realised that perhaps I shouldn’t be leaving the propolis screens in there while chemicals were being used. So today I removed them, you simply put them in the freezer for 24 hours and remove the propolis when it gets brittle. I will clean off the propolis and use it, I thought it quite interesting to see how much the bees had produced in a couple of months. Not a lot, but then it’s a value added crop to honey production.
After I have finished the varroa treatment I will return the screens and leave them there for the winter. I don’t think my bees need an autumn feed but if they do I will put it on afterwards.
