From: Charlie Kroeger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 7:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]

Ellen Anglin ask:

> OK- so if I make up propolis ticture, what do I tell people it is for?

Ahh..tell them it's big medicine.

There is a book called: "The Miracle of Propolis" by Mitza Vosnjak.  He
published this in 1978.  Mitza is a guy that became enthusiastic about
propolis after hanging out with beekeepers and a country doctor that
used propolis tincture on his patients, especially children with fever.

Mitza was also a Yugoslav Ambassador to the GDR and is apparently known
as a poet and novelist.  Judging from Mitza's writing style in "The
Miracle of Propolis" he tends to express himself along the style of
Victorian melodrama and  his writing suffers from excessive tedium; but,
I'll give him a break, as maybe this is how Jugoslav sounds when
translated into English.

However, he went on to include some interesting results from
"reasonably" scientific experiments.  If you take everything in the book
as presented, there would be no reason to have any other medicines in
your house but propolis, if you were injured topically, or ill or
becoming ill, or had pimples.

There are chapters on propolis healing ulcers, (this is believable now
that they know ulcers are caused by bacteria) and young girls clearing
up their facial blemishes, and healing infected dental wounds, and a
prophylaxis for the flu. Propolis is also represented as a natural
antibiotic, and a cure for cancer (question mark) and test results to
indicate many viruses vanquished.

Although every publication about keeping bees will give a fearless
description of what  propolis is,  and  how bees collect resins from the
trees and do their sacred mantra " hummmm" over it and other mysterious
incantations and only then is it transformed into propolis and gets
spread all over the inside of the hive.

I'm not so sure I've ever read  a satisfactory explanation of exactly
why propolis seems to be such a steady state in the universe, like
beeswax.  In other words, to say that resins are collected and used by
the bees as propolis is a very weak answer to what exactly propolis is,
and if I was writing a book on bees, I wouldn't presume to know what it
is or how, precisely, it's produced.

If there are those among us who feel they can post a factual account
regarding this substance and how it's done, I would enjoy reading it.

If you have any dealings with propolis you will know that it's nothing
like the resin from trees, so the question is what do the bees do to
produce this stuff that is practically insoluble in naturally occurring
liquids, save alcohol, which in itself is not so natural in the
strengths required to tincture propolis.

The bees literally cover everything in the hive with it.  As soon as a
new wax cell is used to raise a bee for the first time, it gets a
coating of propolis for every subsequent egg laid in that cell.  If the
combs are used for years, they are completely black with propolis.
Anyone that has melted down old brood comb knows that propolis
"capsules" are not easily changed by the heat required to melt the wax.
In fact the amount of propolis capsules produced compared to the wax
rendered, is not so good, unless you just have a lot of time to spend
for a little wax, and not such a good quality wax either.

Old brood combs on clapped out frames make impressive fire starters if
you have a fireplace, a better thing to do with them if you're like me,
and only have a small number of hives.

Getting back to Mr. Vosnjak's book, in a chapter he titles: "the
medicine of tomorrow" he talks about a meeting of doctors,
veterinarians, pharmacist, chemists, biologist and microbiologist and
they called it the: "Second International Symposium on Propolis,
Bratislava, 1976" and I quote:

>The symposium on propolis consisted of sixty reports on its value in
> mending broken bones, speeding up cell growth, curing diseases of
> mucous membranes, skin, high blood pressure, and various other conditions.

>The organizer of the symposium, Dr. Chizmarik from the University of Bratislava
>was able to report that science had been able to analyze more than half of the
>components of propolis.  Only three and a half years earlier, at the first
symposium
>less than a third of the components had been isolated.

>A scientist from Halle in Germany had been trying to establish which of all the
>substances in propolis had the highest value, which was the most effective in
the
> fight against microbes.  Many times he thought he was on the brink of finding
>the answer.  It would be of real value, since factories throughout the
>world would be able to use his discoveries to produce a medicine from
>the most useful substance.  But it seemed that this would, afterall, not
>be achieved for some time: to date research has not been able to
>surmount the unexpected difficulties which arose almost at the end of
>the research programme.  Perhaps there is not just one substance in
>propolis which is more valuable than all the others; perhaps propolis
>exist only as a whole, and can only be repoduced by one factory in the
>entire world, the beehive!


MY EXPERIENCE:

We use propolis tincture at our house.  We believe and have experienced
evidence of it's abilities in calming an upset stomach when taken with a
mint tea. (recipe to follow) to lowering and removing a fever, and
inducing a relaxed feeling that promoted sleep.  We take it in tea if we
feel we are catching a cold or flu.  We use it as a topical dressing on
small wounds much like the medical experts use iodine.  It has an effect
on skin problems from fungus (it does not cure the fungus, but stops the
itching) to fever blisters.  Basically it does everything Echinacia does
without Echinacia's side effects and allergies associated with that
herbal remedy.  We have never experienced any side effects from propolis
tincture.

We take propolis internally as follows:

To a mug of boiling water add an infusion of mint.  It can be a mint tea
bag.  We like celestial seasonings peppermint, also Taso "refresh" and
to the tea add the juice from 1/2 of a small lemon, and sweeten to taste
with lots of honey.  Now add a 1/2 teaspoon (5 cc.) of the 1:2 propolis
tincture to the tea and give it a stir.  Propolis tincture has a strong
"medicinal" smell and flavor that may necessitate the use of more honey.

To use the propolis topically, just dab a "Q" tip or cotton swab (puds
to you Aussies) in the tincture and paint on.

>What are the selling points for thes $25 bottles?

There are two big expenses in the way I sell propolis, one is the fancy
glass bottle, it looks nice like an old fashion apothecary bottle with a
glass top that has a way to dispense drops of the tincture by turning
the ground glass stopper.

The ethanol I use, is from the local liquor store (off license) and is
sold with a lot of tax.  It's called "everclear." I pay about $10.00 for
a pint. (16oz. 473 ml.)

If you had a neighbor that made good moonshine, white lightening, corn
squeezings, and the like, and would trade you a bottle of that for one
of honey, you would lower your cost considerably.  By the fact that I'm
mixing up 250cc amounts for each dispensing bottle,  I really have to
buy two pints of everclear because I don't have a centrifuge to recover
that part of the tincture within the undissolved bits left over.  I
loose about a fifth of the overall amount.  That means $10 for the
dispensing bottles, and $20 for the alcohol, and hopefully $50 in sales
for the two bottles to cover harvesting, processing, and bottling.  Plus
the "X" factor one is invited to believe propolis offers.

Now, in America, the American Medical Association (A.M.A.) has at least
as many lobbyists in Washington to bribe the lawmakers as Monsanto, and
they take their position as guardians of the prescribed drug very
seriously.  I will just say that to avoid the AMA calling their man at
the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) to dispatch the black helicopters
to our house and have their agents break down our door and shoot our
pets and wreck our house, clap us in irons, and confiscate our bottles
of propolis, because it may have been construed that I was prescribing
medicine (now known as medications) without the proper credentials and
that I may have suggested a better course for the common cold than say
an antibiotic, that, believe it or not, is still prescribed by some
licensed general practitioners for that common endemic illness; in
short, I'm not telling you that propolis can cure any illness, I'm just
relating my experience and certain details of Mr. Vosnjak's interesting
book.


Charles Kroeger

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