What is Bee Pollen?

What is Bee Pollen?
Bee pollen is pollen that has been collected from flowers by worker bees, packed into pellets.

The commerically available bee pollen - that which is sold as a superfood / health supplement, is collected by beekeepers from worker honey bees, using a pollen trap.

Is Bee Pollen Good For You?

There may be some small differences between different batches of bee pollen, because the nutritional content of pollen varies between species of plant.

Pollen contains a number of anti-oxidants, minerals, proteins and a number of other ingredients so that some believe bee pollen benefits humans as well as bees. 

Having examined the evidence, I am personally sceptical.  I would be wary of the marketing claims made, and:

• the instances where inconclusive evidence has been used, or

• evidence to back up the benefits of minerals in one source of food, has been twisted and used as justification for making claims about bee pollen as a super food.  For example, I cam across a claim that because kale has minerals which are good for the eye sight, bee pollen would be good for eye sight too, because it also contains those minerals.  Well that's fine, but to purchase bee pollen as a health supplement is much more expensive than a food such as kale!

 

What do IBRA,  (International Bee Research Association) say about Bee Pollen?:

To take a look at some of the claims made with regard to whether or not bee pollen is good for you, see these links:

• bee pollen and nutrition - this page features a break down of nutritional tables.  It compares these values with those found in far less expensive and widely available foods, such as an apple, or a portion of kale.
• health benefits of bee pollen - considers some of the claims made, in relation to health, such as improved athletic performance, aging and eye sight.
• Bee pollen & weight loss - examines whether bee pollen is an aid to losing weight - taking into account that bee pollen is fairly high in calories in comparison with other beneficial foods.  Upon anaylsis, some of the claims made are certainly questionable in my view, and the dieting industry has not exploited bee pollen as a dieting aid.

I came to the conclusion that a balanced diet will give you everything you need.

There have been claims that bee pollen can help you lose weight.  Again, I personally feel there is no evidence for this at all, whereas I found scientific research in humans regarding weight loss after consuming apple cider vinegar (see my page apple cider vinegar and honey diet (I discarded studies in rodents).

In addition, there is much evidence regarding some of the specific properties in honey - see my page Is honey good for you? With honey, my findings are that nutritionally, it's not much better than ordinary sugar, but there has been research, for example measuring honey's efficacy in countering MRSA.

What Is Bee Pollen? - Products And Preparations

Supplements can be purchased in a number of formats, in tablets, capsules and granules, and sometimes combined, for example with royal jelly or propolis.

However, according to the book ‘The Healing Powers of Pollen’, the author, Patrice Percie Du Sert states that we now know that drying pollen destroys most of the beneficial active ingredients in bee pollen.

If he is right, this may be of concern to those considering purchasing dried pollen. Patrice Percie Du Sert advocates fresh bee pollen that is removed from honey bee hives, and he has devised a way to supply and sell bee pollen in such a format through a special process involving freezing the pollen.

My Conclusion

My analysis outlined on the links above, suggests that bee pollen contains a number of nutrients in tiny amounts that are essential to bees, with their tiny bee bodies and developing colonies.

These nutrients are also of benefit to humans, however, they are are also available in many commonly eaten and available foods (which happen to be less expensive).   So if anyone would ask me "What is bee pollen and is it a Super Food?", I'd have to answer

"it's a super food for bees, but as for humans, you may as well go and eat a portion of boiled kale, or even an apple - unless you want to consume lots of extra calories in your diet!".

• Why bees need nectar and pollen.
• The plant pollination process.
• Home page

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