What is Stingless Bee Honey?
Honey has been long known as the world's original natural sweetener. A by-product of bees honey is a sweet syrupy by product of bees that have been used by people around the world for thousands of years both as a sweetener and medicinal product. The two most common types of honey bees around the world is the European honey bee and the Stingless honey bee.
European Honey Bees
The European honey bee also called the Western honey bee's scientific name is Apis Mellifera Linnaeus. These bees are naturally found throughout Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Africa. This species of bee is divided into 20 different subspecies. Manuka honey comes from European honey bees and the honey is named after the plant that these bees tend to prefer.
While some subspecies of European honey bees do not have stingers, most of them do. These honey bees are also quite large and tend to swarm easily (Although some subspecies are more aggressive than others) They are also susceptible to a number of diseases that have been known to wipe out entire hives.
Stingless Bees (Trigona / Melipona)
The Stingless Bees are either classified as Trigona or Melipona and can be found in tropical and subtropical regions including Australia, Africa, South East Asia, and parts of Mexico and Brazil. Like the European honey bee there are several subspecies of this species of bee. Honey from different subspecies of stingless bees make various types of honey. For example Malaysia honey is known as Kelulut while honey from the Philippines is Anaya honey. Trigona honey is named not for a plant, but the bee itself.
Trigona bees tend to smaller than their European counterpart and are black in color, not the yellow and black color found in European bees. While they can become aggressive if threatened they tend to be more relaxed than their Western counterparts. They also seem to be healthier than European bees as well.
Like Manuka honey Trigona honey differs in taste from region to region and even from distances as close to just a few miles due to the different types of plants from which the bees collect nectar and pollen.
General Benefits of Honey
Honey provides a number of benefits to humans. While raw honey has more benefits than processed honey both provide certain benefits including:
Honey contains amino acids, vitamins and minerals. It is a nutritional rich food that supplies much of what the body needs.
Honey also has anti-oxidants which help to control free radicals and protects the body from cell damage. Anti-oxidants can help slow signs of ageing as well help prevent cancer and heart disease.
Honey has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. It also can help heal wounds helping prevent you from contacting bacterial and fungal infections.
Honey also helps to soothe sore throats and can aid in cough suppression.
Can help treat allergies
Increased Benefits of Stingless Bee Honey
Stingless bee honey from Trigona bees tends to contain more vitamins and minerals and more anti-oxidants than Manuka honey. Our Trigona honey from Trigona bees in the Philippines has the highest anti-oxidant and anti-bacterial properties of Trigona honey from other regions such as Malaysia. This honey is known to kill 83% of bad bacteria. In addition, since Anaya honey absorbs Propolis from plants their microbacterial properties are more consistent that of Manuka honey that does not contain propolis.
Overall, stingless bee honey provides everything that manuka honey provides, but without the high amounts of sugar.
How Trigona honey from the Philippines is Better for You Than Manuka Honey
Trigona honey from the Philippines is better for you than manuka honey because it contains more nutrients, and has more anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-oxidant properties than Manuka honey. This means that this honey can provide you with a much healthier immune system that will help you fight a number of different diseases more efficiently. In addition honey from these bees can supply with nutrients that may be lacking in a normal diet.
Anaya's Stingless Bees Are Not Raised To Be Honey Producers
It should be noted that Anaya's stingless bees only produce 500grams of honey a year. One of the reasons for this is because these bees are not raised as purely honey producers, but rather as a means of fertilizing crops in Philippines.
Trigona honey can taste vastly different due to the different regions do the fact that Trigona bees get their nectar from different plants that they pollinate as they collect the plants nectar and pollen. In some areas of Malaysia their honey has a sweet/sour taste that is not unpleasant, but can be a surprise to those people not use to this type of honey.
Even our Trigona honey has a different taste from one batch to the next because this company works with various farmers to pollinate their crops. Some of the crops these bees are used to pollinate (and get their nectar from) includes mangos, pineapple, tamarind Calamansi, coconut, banana, and Lychee.
While these different plants all can change the taste of our Trigona honey, overall, this honey has sweet fruity taste that people love.
It is vitally important to provide bees to pollinate crops, since the population of the world depends on crops for a large majority of their food. Anaya's stingless bees provide an organic way for farmers to pollinate their crops and keep them healthy so that there is enough food grown to help feed the world without the use of any artificial means or chemicals.
Just a couple of boxes (hives) is all that is needed to pollinate large farms although Trigona bees rarely fly more than a few miles from their home base.
If you have never tried our Trigona honey you really should. Not only will you be consuming a delicious healthy sweet treat, but you will be using a product from the hard little workers that are helping maintain the world's food supply of delicious fruits and vegetables.