Raise bees, reap sweet rewards

MANILA, Philippines - Bees keep an important role in maintaining the equilibrium of the environment, and human beings are the luckiest to have been bestowed one of the greatest nature’s gift in promoting a sound health.  

The bee’s honey is such a valuable product of nature that has proven its worth over a million years bearing essentially medicinal, cosmetic, and nutritive properties.

It has a number of uses ranging from being a sweetener substance, an effective and safe home remedy, a good source of antioxidants, to being a beauty regimen. It can be used raw or can be combined with other substances and natural sources.

Aside from honey, beeswax is also an indispensable and widely-used bee product that serves well especially in the field of cosmetics.  

The apiculture industry in the Philippines has shown good opportunities both in the local and international markets. Its potentials are consistently being developed to further improve the business, in a collaborative effort among various sectors such as the government, non-government, and private sector.  

The Pampanga Agricultural College (PAC) in Magalang, Pampanga has ventured in the beekeeping industry through research and development in the hopes of promoting it to various communities in the vicinity of Mt. Arayat.

Supported by the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR), the project aims to upgrade the apiary of PAC for training, research, and extension; conduct relevant researches which include pollination and foraging behavior and economics; and extend beekeeping technologies to farmers through training.

In its two-year implementation, among the accomplishments of the project was the establishment and commercialization of bee products which include soaps, ointment, lip balm, body scrub, shower gel, and beeswax candles.

Since ancient times, bee products have been used in body and beauty care. It was said that Cleopatra used honey as a beauty potion. For PAC, its bee products are no different than Cleopatra’s beauty regimen especially in terms of skin care.

Honey, combined with other natural sources, produces a wide array of healthy, all-natural products such as honey moisturizing soap, lotus honey soap, and tamarind soap with honey, tamarind shower gel with honey and body scrub made of lotus-honey.

With its antioxidant properties, honey becomes an important ingredient in cosmetics that serves as good moisturizer and skin conditioner.  

Beeswax, another bee product, is a natural wax secreted by the bees when constructing their honeycombs.  It goes far beyond history when it was used in the manufacturing of various applications such as bows, wax tablets, and cosmetic products including bath essentials, lipstick, fragrances, hair-coloring products, nail care, and body creams and lotions.

The medicinal attributes of beeswax are what make its products attractive especially to Filipinos who are often drawn to naturally-made products offering safe yet effective results.

Much like the different ointments made from beeswax that are infused with other natural ingredients such as tamarind, lotus, and adlay –  these products are proven to relieve skin inflammation and hasten wound healing. There are also lotus beeswax and honey lip balm which are guaranteed to soothe dry lips.

In various tests and treatments conducted by the project team led by Dr. Norman de Jesus, a horticulture professor and researcher at PAC, the lotus-honey soap was able to treat sun rashes and pimples with regular application in as early as nine days.

The same goes for the lotus beeswax ointment, which showed good results when applied to wounds twice a day for 10 days.  

According to De Jesus, the project “Promotion of Beekeeping and Bee Product and By-Product Development” serves a much higher purpose which is to bring beekeeping technologies to various municipalities and barangays around Mt. Arayat in Pampanga. 

The objective is  to create awareness on the importance of bees in agriculture  and to promote beekeeping as a source of livelihood for local farmers and entrepreneurs.

“PAC will continue to collaborate with stakeholders to strengthen and develop science-based approaches and technologies in the development of beekeeping particularly in the province of Pampanga,” De Jesus said.

As for BAR, it will continuously support the government’s directives in the promotion and development of apiculture through research and development, which in the end will create new opportunities to sustain the beekeeping industry.