Only bees can produce propolis in the true sense of the word, because it is they who collect the secretions from buds and trees in order to then process them with waxes, pollen, essential oils and other natural substances into a resin-like substance. People scrape the finished bee putty out of the cracks and joints of the hive - or use a close-meshed grid to encourage the little builders to serve them the precious sealant on a silver platter, so to speak.

The propolis can easily be broken out of such a grid, the magic word for ease of use is “freeze drying”. This process is used to harvest the so-called raw propolis, which may still contain pieces of wood, bee waste and other impurities. If you want to make a propolis preparation, you must first clean the base mass. You can do this if you roughly chop the raw mass and wash it out with alcohol. The cleaned propolis is then finely ground in a mortar. The result is a powder from which an extract can be produced - again with the help of alcohol - which, in its pure preparation, contains the ingredients from the bees glue in concentrated form.

Of course, you can also consume a purified propolis powder directly. The same applies to the coarsely chopped raw propolis. For external use, however, the further processing of the extract has proven itself, which is concentrated or diluted in tinctures, ointments, creams or lozenges. Spray solutions for the throat, face masks and all kinds of other cosmetic dosage forms are now also available to buy. Most of them can be made by resourceful propolis fans themselves. There are recipes on the Internet that can be easily cooked at home.

All information about propolis can be found in our Propolis Lexicon.

You can find high-quality propolis products in many variations in our propolis shop.


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