Royal Jelly from Antonio on top of the cold storage container it comes in

Antonio Simon the organic beekeeper has some fresh royal jelly which he sent to us. (You can buy it here).

Here’s some information about Royal Jelly.

What is royal jelly?

Royal jelly is a delicate liquid that is secreted by the pharyngeal glands of the heads of honey bees and used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens. The worker bees feed royal jelly to all larvae in the colony.   When the time has come to make a new queen, they choose several small larvae and feed them with large quantities of royal jelly in specially constructed queen cells.  Feeding this way initiates the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs.

What’s in royal jelly?

The overall composition of royal jelly is 67% water, 12.5% crude protein, a wide array of amino acids (the building blocks of protein), 11% simple sugars (monosaccharides), and 5% of fatty acids.  It also contains many trace minerals, some enzymes, antibacterial and antibiotic components, and trace amounts of vitamin C.    Royal jelly is a pure acetylcholine.  In the central nervous system acetylcholine is believed to be involved in learning, memory, and mood.  It also contains 10-Hydroxy-2-Decenoic Acid a substance found only in royal jelly.

The following is a break down of what is found in royal jelly:

* 17 amino acids
* aspartic acid: 15%
* carbohydrates: 12-15%
* protein: 12%
* lipids: 5-6%

Royal Jelly is full of vitamins

* Pantothenic Acid: 65.0 to 200.0 mcg
* Biotin: 0.9 to 3.7 mcg
* Inositol: 78.0 to 150.0 mcg
* Folic Acid: 0.16 to 0.50mcg
* Vitamin C: Trace
* Vitamin B1: 1.5 to 7.4 mcg
* Vitamin B2: 5.3 to 10.0 mcg
* Vitamin B6: 2.2 to 10.2 mcg
* Niacin: 91.0 to 149.0 mcg

Benefits of Royal Jelly

- What can it do for me?

Royal jelly has been reported to have cholesterol-lowering, anti-inflammatory, wound-healing, and antibiotic effects.  It has also been reported to stimulate the growth of glial cells and neural stem cells in the brain.  Research also suggests that 10 HDA found only in royal jelly may inhibit the growth of tumours.

In comparison to worker bees the queen bee fed solely on royal jelly lives an incredibly long life so one may infer royal jelly to be a longevity food of high standing.

Proponents of royal Jelly have said that some of the following health conditions can be helped.

* Weak Bones
* Coronary Artery Disease
* Depression
* Diabetes
* High Blood Pressure
* Endocrine System Disorders
* Anemia
* Arthritis
* Hormonal Imbalances
* High Cholesterol
* Impotence
* Infertility
* Inflammation
* Impaired Memory
* Immunne System problems
* Mental Exhaustion
* Menopause
* Panic Attacts
* Parkinson’s Disease
* Anxiety
* Wrinkles
* Bacterial Infections
* Weight Control
* Wound Healing

Our royal jelly is certified organic, fresh and of the highest quality.   If you wish to benefit from this amazing superfood be sure to hurry your order as we have only 150 jars. It will be sent to you deep frozen in an insulated box.

You can buy our fresh and frozen royal jelly here

If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired and wish to regain the youth and vitality you felt in your younger years then perhaps you should consider taking bee pollen.

Most if not all of us from time to time could do with extra energy and with exercise there is no better way to create energy in your body than by consuming high energy foods.

Let’s be straight about this – food is fuel… and many of us are familiar with the fuel and engine analogy! Are you still trying to fuel your engine with inferior foods or supplements?

Most of us have become accustomed to the SUKD (Standard UK Diet) which is high in meat dairy and bread and low in fruits vegetables and fresh plant foods.

If you experience regular aches and pains, are quick to temper and feel exhausted at the end of a working day you can be sure you are lacking in the nutrients your body requires!

By adding more alkaline foods like bee pollen to your diet will overtime give you the energy health and wellbeing you desire!

Most of us only know average health; few of us know abundant energy and vitality and by increasing the nutrient levels in your diet you too can begin to feel the health and wellness you deserve.

Introducing Antonio’s bee pollen…

This rare bee pollen is harvested from pristine areas in remote mountain areas of northern Spain and dried at air temperature to ensure maximum quality and minimum degradation!

An alkaline food considered by nutritionist’s to be a complete food which means it contains every nutrient our body needs to ensure maximum health and longevity. HoneyBee pollen is rich in protein carbohydrates vitamins and minerals.

This unique pollen has a diverse array of colours unlike the many run of the mill commercial pollens which are mostly freeze or heat dried all look the same and have only one colour – mainly yellow.

What are the benefits of this remarkable superfood?

Bee Pollen contains natural lecithin!

Every cell in the body depends on lecithin; it is a key building block of cell membranes and without it, they would harden. Lecithin protects cells from damage and largely comprises the protective sheaths surrounding the brain.

Bee pollen is one of the richest sources of lutin – an important element to help strengthen very small blood vessels called capillaries. These small blood vessels are vital to the circulatory system, as they are the ultimate delivery network for nutrients and waste between the organs and the bloodstream!

High in stress busting antioxidants!

When life overwhelms us anti-oxidants help us fight stress so by taking bee pollen daily you can minimise the damaging effects of stress on your mind and body!

Further benefits include:

* Increased energy and stamina.
* Increased muscle growth and muscle definition.
* Improved immune function.
* Smoother younger looking skin
* Enhanced sexuality

Bee pollen contains just about every nutrient needed by the body to recover quickly from illness and put the spring back in your step. It is a true superfood of the highest order.

It’s important to bear in mind that we cannot make any specific claims about the benefits of pollen under UK legislation and that you need to study all the information available carefully.

Also, it is very important to note that some people can have an allergic reaction to pollen.  You should take a few grains of pollen just to check that you do not have an allergic reaction.

We’re offering boxes of 12 jars at a discounted price here:

Or you can buy single jars here:  Buy single jars of bee pollen here

Raw Honey Gift Basket of 3 honeys in kilner jars

Bread basket containing three 125 gram kilner jars of raw honey

The first gift set contain raw honeys like heather, lemon blossom and orange blossom in kilner jars.

There are 125 grams of honey in each jar. The jars are in a small bread basket wrapped around with raffia and a Christmas ribbon. Each set is £10.

Order Gift Basket of 3 organic honeys in 125 gram kilner jars

Two quarter kilo jars of raw organic honey

Two quarter kilo jars of raw organic honey in gift sets.

These gift sets contain two jars of raw organic honey. Typically the honeys will be of the varieties heather and thyme. Both honeys are high in antioxidants. Thyme honey contains a natural antiseptic that believe it or not is used in products like listerine! The jars are wrapped in a clear film with raffia and a gift tag. Each set is £8.

Order Gift Set of Two Organic Honeys

Two raw organic honeys in 125 gram kilner jars

Two small kilner jars of raw honey. One jar has organic walnuts in the honey.

These gift sets contain two raw organic honeys in kilner jars. Each kilner jar contains 125 grams of raw honey.  One jar contains nuts – organic walnuts. Nuts in honey are absolutely delicious and keep for a long time. The honeys are  typically from chestnut, rosemary, thyme and oak. The jars are wrapped in a clear film with raffia and a gift tag. Each set is £7.

Order gift set of two organic honeys in kilner jars – one jar has organic walnuts in the honey (delicious!)

DELIVERY IS £3 A SET (ALL SETS) OR £4.50 FOR TWO SETS. THREE OR MORE SETS ARE £7. For guaranteed delivery before Christmas you need to select the £7 delivery option irrespective of quantity. You will see the delivery options on the order form after you have clicked to order. If you want to combine your gift sets with an order of our other honeys in 1 kilo jars select the £9 delivery option.

For this week only (just to our best customers) we’re also offering sets of 4 kilos or more of raw heather and raw orange blossom at an extra 10% off – giving you a massive 25% discount (or even more for larger quantities). Choose either variety or a  combination of the two.

Ramon’s Heather honey is excellent. Very dark (almost black) and runny.

The Orange Blossom has a strong hint of orange in the after taste.

These two honeys are our top sellers.

To get this discount you have to enter the code XMAS on the order form – it’ll be clear where to put it when the order form comes up. The base cost is £10 a kilo.

Order Raw Heather Honey

Order Raw Orange Blossom Honey

Order by the 20th December for delivery before Christmas. Delivery is £9 an order irrespective of the quantity for the raw Heather and raw Orange Blossom offer. You can add gift sets to your order at no extra delivery cost.

Antonio has recently sent us some of his organic bee pollen. This is more expensive than some bee pollen but the quality is very good – both in terms of flavour and preservation of natural qualities.

There’s free delivery on this pollen until the end of April.

Antonio dries the pollen naturally at air temperature. Much of the pollen available online is heat dried.  This is said to damage the pollen.

Antonio's organic bee pollen comes in 250 gram jars

The pollen is wild flower pollen – the bees collect it from a variety of flowers – and is available in 225 gram jars at a cost of £11.

Order a single jar of organic raw bee pollen here.

Order three jars of organic raw bee pollen here and save 10%

Order six jars of organic raw bee pollen here and save 15%

We only have three boxes left and once these are gone there will be no more until May.  Remember until the end of April there’s free delivery on this organic pollen.

What exactly is bee pollen?

Bee pollen is an alkaline food considered by some nutritionists to be one of the most complete foods found in nature.

Where does bee pollen come from? Honeybees collect millions of pollen grains which are microscopic in size and then bind them together with nectar.

Bee Pollen contains 55 per cent carbohydrate, 35 per cent protein, 2 per cent fatty acids and 3 per cent minerals and vitamins.

Bee Pollen contains up to 5,000 enzymes, and the phytonutrients (such as co-enzymes, bioflavonoids, phytosterols, and carotenoids) also number in the thousands.

Bee pollen contains all the essential amino acids, which make it a complete protein and is extraordinarily rich in most of the B vitamins, including folic acid (folate).

Many people regard bee pollen as having extensive health benefits It is widely used a health enhancer and energy builder by top athletes the world over.

It is widely used as a longevity tonic and has helped many achieve peak performance.

The Chinese have used pollen for thousands of years; they considered it valuable in treating a wide range of conditions and used it as an energy and nutritive tonic.

One of the most intriguing facts about bee pollen is that, despite the many thousands of chemical analyses it cannot be synthesized in a laboratory. This means there are still some elements present in bee pollen that science cannot identify.

Some naturopaths say that these unidentifiable elements may be the reason why bee pollen works remarkably well against so many diverse ameliorative conditions of ill health.

Researchers at the Institute of Apiculture, Taranov, Russia claim bee pollen to be the richest source of vitamins found in Nature.

This bee pollen is air dried at low temperatures which ensures the pollen you are getting is fresh, has had minimal exposure to heat or cold all of which can degrade the pollens nutritional qualities.

Proponents of bee pollen say that it can help with the following:

• Greater levels of Energy
• Increased Stamina and endurance
• Improved Sexual health and performance
• Acts as an Immune system booster
• May help with Prostate diseases
• As a longevity food and tonic
• May help with skin problems like acne
• Improved digestion

Many people who are recuperating use bee pollen.

How do you eat bee pollen?

You can sprinkle it on your  cereal, eat it with yoghurt or add it to your smoothie … or alternatively, as we do, you might just want to eat it straight from the spoon.

What does it taste like?

It has a sweet and flowery taste, many people love it, others say it is an acquired taste.

Antonio’s bee pollen is certified organic, meaning it is from a pure environment without artificial pesticides, fertilisers or antibiotics.

You can buy the bee pollen Order organic raw bee pollen here

Organic honeycomb that is made by the bees in the jar

We have a few jars, about 22 of some of Antonio’s raw organic honeycomb. This is fairly unique as far as  the bees actually make the honeycomb in the jars.  Antonio puts the jars in the hive with a little honey in them. This encourages the bees to build honeycomb, which they make in the jars. Then Antonio seals the honeycomb in the jars.

This is probably the best form of honey. It has all the natural benefits – pollen, wax, propolis, live enzymes (like the one that produces a mild form of the antiseptic hydrogen peroxide), antioxidants and all the naturla minerals and vitamins that occur in honey.

Because of the way that this honeycomb is produced it is very expensive, but unlike most honeycomb that is for sale it is pure. Most honeycomb in the supermarkets is placed in pasteurised honey, usually of a different type than the honey in the comb.

You can buy it here.

Ramon had put the rosemary in jars the day before we picked it up. We shared a glass of wine with him and Begonia, his lovely wife, who has incredibly clear skin. She puts it down to the rosemary honey face mask she puts on once a week, which she recommended to me.

Then we were on our way, in a dash to our house in the pyrenees for a night’s sleep (got there at 5am after spending hours talking to Ramon and Begonia), then the next day a dash to catch the ferry from Dieppe.

I must say this rosemary honey has a wonderful translucent appearance and it is at its peak now.

Wikipedia define unltrafiltration as follows: Ultrafiltered honey Honey processed by very fine filtration under high pressure to remove all extraneous solids and pollen grains. The process typically heats honey to 150-170 °F to more easily pass through the fine filter. Ultrafiltered honey is very clear and has a longer shelf life, because it crystallizes more slowly due to the high temperatures breaking down any sugar seed crystals, making it preferred by the supermarket trade. Ultrafiltration eliminates nutritionally valuable enzymes, such as diastase and invertase

Really the test of good honey is more about whether it’s raw. It is raw honey that still contains the enzymes and pollens that are beneficial for our health. If it’s organic as well great but the first check should be whether it’s raw.

This is the article:

The cosy-sounding world of honey – redolent of toasted crumpets and jars with flowery labels in country shops – has been going through turbulent times. When Northumbrian honey farmer Willie Robson blew the whistle on a fellow beekeeper, Richard Brodie, for potting Argentine honey and passing it off as Scottish borders honey, the court case that resulted last week before Berwick-on-Tweed magistrates exposed some of the tough realities of an intensely competitive international business.

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The most significant of these realities is that bees – like any creature – can get sick; so beekeepers administer small doses of antibiotics. The less scrupulous overstep the limits by dosing hives with excessive levels or banned drugs.One reason that Brodie’s scam rang food-safety bells is that Argentine honey has come under scrutiny in recent times. For while Brodie represented small-time honey laundering, Argentina is among a number of nations suspected by EU and other industry sources of having laundered on a larger scale honey that is not their own in recent years.

Britain produces only about one-tenth of the honey it consumes. The rest, about 22,000 tonnes of the sticky amber imported from countries all over the world, is often blended before sale. But how can we be sure that the honey in the pot is what the label says?

In the boardroom of Britain’s biggest honey packer, Rowse – based in the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford, at the heart of Britain’s “honey valley” – operations director Brian Butcher says that for legitimate blenders, “the trouble is there are so many places in the world where people are selling dodgy honey. Once you spot a problem area, it moves elsewhere.”

In January this year, 14,000 jars labelled “Produce of India” were stopped for testing at Felixstowe docks. The honey turned out to be contaminated with chloramphenicol, a wide-spectrum antibiotic banned in food production in most countries. In susceptible individuals, it can cause a fatal blood condition, aplastic anaemia. And the country most associated with the use of chloramphenicol on bees? China – whose honey had consequently been banned on health grounds by the EU in 2002. Commenting on the Felixstowe seizure, Vijay Sardana, head of the Indian trade body CITA, said that India believed Chinese honey was being smuggled into India through Nepal, repackaged and then sold abroad.

China rejects such accusations, saying that competitor nations have a vested interest in peddling untruths to get China’s honey pushed off the market. And Beijing has received new support from Brussels, which has just rescinded the import ban after EU inspectors confirmed that China was moving to stop chloramphenicol use and establish an effective control and detection system for food safety.

During the two-year EU ban, the disappearance of legal Chinese honey caused upheaval. For years it had been a basic ingredient in blended honeys because of its sweetness and cheapness; now packers worldwide switched to Argentine, Mexican and east-European honey. Yet chloramphenicol-tainted honey kept turning up.

In the export market there was a dramatic increase in honey on offer from Vietnam, for instance, where the bees had gone into such an overdrive that a country not known as a significant honey exporter had thousands of tons for sale. And there was something else. Thomas Heck, a director of the leading British honey importer Kimpton Brothers, recalls being offered a container-load of Vietnamese honey two years ago. “Standard Vietnamese honey is dark, but this was white,” he said. “It wasn’t from one of our usual suppliers. We turned it down.”

Singapore suddenly discovered a penchant for beekeeping – surprising in a country which, according to Bee Culture magazine, “has no bees” in the commercial sense. Overnight in early 2002, just as Chinese honey was banned by the EU, Singapore became the world’s fourth biggest honey exporter and the tonnage of honey sold to Australia, which in 2001 had been zero, leaped to nearly 1,500 tonnes.

As emails and faxes kept arriving at honey packers in Europe and the US offering cheap honey from some unlikely places, investigators came to a startling conclusion: contaminated honey from China was being relabelled and offered for sale as the produce of third-world countries. In the past 12 months, honey labelled as the produce of Cyprus, Tanzania, Moldova, Romania, Argentina, Portugal, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria and Vietnam has turned up in European ports, honey blenders and supermarkets, testing positive for chloramphenicol. In this period, it has been found in 14 consignments intercepted in Europe and the EU’s “rapid alert” food safety system in Brussels has been notified.

China challenges all attempts to brand its exporters as honey launderers, or its industry as the sole source of contaminated honey. “It is just not fair to immediately classify as Chinese honey anything containing chloramphenicol,” it says.

A detailed official statement to the Guardian throws the chloramphenicol allegations back at other honey producers: “Antibiotic in honey is a global problem, not just a problem to China, “it says, adding that the industry organisation Apimondia convened a world conference in Germany two years ago to discuss this problem, after a survey of the international honey industry reported that “sulfonamides were found in Canadian honey, tetracycline and streptomycin in American, Mexican and Argentine honey, miticides and insecticides in American honey and chloramphenicol in Chinese and European honey.”

Regardless of the origins of the honey on sale in the shops, the question now for Britain’s consumers will be: how safe is it? During the ban on Chinese honey, the UK government’s veterinary residues committee said it found just five samples of chloramphenicol-contaminated honey – labelled as being from Argentina, Romania and Moldova – in British shops. Officials cannot possibly check all 22,000 tonnes imported from abroad, and it appears they follow a system to test only where there are good grounds for suspicion. But with contaminated honey detected in exports from countries as diverse as Spain, Portugal and Argentina, can any country be deemed safe?

According to Butcher, who is also chairman of the Honey Association, a trade body, the British importers and packers who actually put most of the honey into the jars are on top of the problem. “Now we test everything and we stick with suppliers we know and trust. When they found contaminated Moldovan honey, every honey packer in the UK knew about it within the day. We are confident nothing will get through.”

The Honey Association’s technical adviser is Peter Martin, an expert on pollen analysis whose hobby is learning Mandarin Chinese and who keeps a freezer full of honey samples from all over the world in his kitchen. Martin has travelled three times to visit Chinese honey farms and is struggling to master the language because, he says, he believes the future for safe honey lies in persuading the Chinese to produce it, not just telling the Chinese to keep their honey to themselves. Martin has never found chloramphenicol in any samples sent to him for analysis by British packers.

Meanwhile, another phenomenon has been adding to the turbulence in the global honey market – ultrafiltered or “UF” honey. First noticed in the US, it is honey with almost everything taken out, including the impurities.

Bruce Boynton, chief executive of America’s National Honey Board, told the Guardian: “I am not aware of chloramphenicol-contaminated honey entering the US any more. Now it looks like they have found a way to remove the contamination. At least some of the stuff coming in from China appears to be something other than honey.” In a test by the board earlier this year, nine out of 69 samples taken from American supermarket shelves proved to be UF honey.

This product – as distinct from the “fine-filtered honey” marketed in Britain by companies such as Gales – is, according to most honey experts, not honey at all. Instead it is “a sweetener derived from honey” – honey that has been diluted with gallons of water, heated up to a high temperature, passed through an ultra-fine ceramic or carbon filter, and then evaporated down to a syrup again. In the process, every trace of impurity – including, some believe, traces of chloramphenicol – are removed.

America’s believes that UF, rather than contaminated honey, is now the real threat to the purity of honey internationally. “It started coming in a year or so ago,” Boynton said. “It’s got a yellowish cast, and it’s a little thicker than real honey, and it doesn’t taste like regular honey either. We’re developing a good, reliable test for it with a research institute in Oregon. The thing about this stuff is that it’s incredibly cheap. A lot of packers deny it, but I imagine it could be used quite widely in the American food industry instead of the real thing.”

Hundreds of miles away in Texas, beekeeper Jerry Stroope is just as forthright. Stroope, who farms 6,000 bee colonies across 100 square miles of Texas to produce indigenous wildflower and tallow tree varieties, complains: “Nobody can prove it yet, but my guess is that all the big food manufacturers are using this stuff. And the US government is not going to take these boys on – they are just too powerful.”

So the sting in the tail is that, if Stroope and the US National Honey Board are right, who needs to launder honey across international borders if you can simply ultrafilter it instead?

UF honey may not as yet have reached these shores. A spokeswoman for the Food Standards Agency said: “We are not aware of ‘ultrafiltered’ honey entering the UK, and the process described would go against the spirit of the UK’s honey regulations and would result in a product not of the nature, substance or quality expected by consumers. We will be talking to the relevant enforcement authorities to advise them of the possibility of products of this nature entering the UK.”

Butcher says British packers have never encountered the stuff. “If UF honey does exist, I am certain we would be able to tell. I don’t think it could be imported into Europe. By all accounts it is tasteless and colourless. We would know from the tests that something was wrong and we would not use it.”