10 Takeaways from the 2024 Study “Restoring the Propolis Envelope”
You may find the sticky propolis that gums up your hive tools and stains your clothes rather… annoying… as a beekeeper.
However, it is incredibly important for the health of your bees. Many of you know that, too.
We’ve been on a journey learning about the incredible benefits of propolis, largely thanks to our friends, Dr. Marla Spivak, a professor at the University of Minnesota who has dedicated much of her life to research on the subject, and Dr. Michael Simone-Finstrom, a researcher at the United States Department of Agriculture Honey Bee Lab.
In fact, this research has led to us creating a new product called Propola — a uniquely designed hive body that allows bees to create a propolis envelope in the roughened interior walls of the hive.
The research on the incredible benefits of propolis for bee health spoke to us loud and clear, and we couldn’t help but take action by creating the Propola Hive.
“We found that rough wood boxes are the most effective box type for stimulating propolis deposition.”
We’re excited to share with you the latest publication on the research that inspired us: “Thinking inside the box: Restoring the propolis envelope facilitates honey bee social immunity.”
This research is thanks to Dr. Mike Simone-Finstrom, Maggie Shanahan, Dr. Marla Spivak, Philip Tokarz, Frank Rinkevich, and Quentin D Read.
We wanted to share with you our top takeaways.
Of course, we hope you read the research article in full on your own.
Next time your hive tool is gummed up with Propolis you might just find a smile on your face…
At Premier Bee, we’ve read the study from top-to-bottom, cover-to-cover.
To make skimming easy for you, let’s dive into our top 10 takeaways:
1. Propolis envelope collection is a natural defense to improve colony health.
Many honey bee colonies today face unique challenges to their hive health, such as exposure to pests, toxins, and pathogens.
But bees have been dealing with threats since the origin of their species. To defend themselves, honey bees utilize both their individual and social immune systems.
One such example of this social immunity is the presence of propolis that bees envelope on the inside of their nests.
Propolis is a mixture of beeswax and antimicrobial plant resin collected by bees. The sticky substance serves many purposes like sealing crevices and protecting the colony from unwanted microbes.
“A growing body of evidence suggests that propolis is an important part of a colony’s social immunity and could reduce the impact of some of the stressors that threaten honey bee health both within and beyond industrialized agricultural landscapes.”
2. Propolis-rich colonies had improved colony strength.
In short, propolis aided hives which resulted in healthier bees. We know our bees are up against it with increasing varroa mite counts, herbicides and pesticides in modern agriculture, and shrinking natural environments.
The presence of propolis, this study suggests, helped mitigate these harmful effects.
From the study:
“Propolis-rich environments have been shown to support honey bee colony health in a variety of ways (reviewed by Simone-Finstrom and Spivak [15], Simone-Finstrom et al. [19]). In addition to modulating immune gene expression and improving colony strength and survivorship, propolis may help mitigate pathogen impacts,” the research study says.
Healthier bees = stronger colonies.
3. Propolis promoted the growth of putatively beneficial microbes.
Colonies with an abundance of propolis were compared to colonies with lacking amounts of propolis.
The comparison suggested that propolis encourages the growth of putatively beneficial microbes.
“...the stabilization of microbial communities in propolis-rich environments could help explain why the presence of propolis supports bee resistance to external stressors.”
4. Rough surface boxes were designed to mimic the grooves found inside the hollow tree cavities.
Feral honey bees commonly make their home in tree cavities. Those tree cavities naturally provide texture. If you’ve ever observed the inside of a bee tree, you will find that they pack every crack and crevice with propolis, creating what is called a propolis envelope.
Modern beekeeping has utilized a hive body with smooth interior surfaces. While this is convenient in manufacturing, these smooth walls do not stimulate the bees to create a propolis envelope inside their hive.
In this research study, three hive boxes were compared to conclude which type would stimulate the most propolis collection by the bees and how it would benefit the hive. The three hive boxes included a control with smooth interior surfaces, a box with plastic propolis traps stapled to the interior walls, and a rough box with deep grooves cut into the interior surface.
5. The total bee population in the rough-box colonies was significantly larger than in control colonies.
View this image for a visual representation of the rough-box colony growth in migratory colonies.
Not only did they see a boost in colony count, but it was by a significant margin — nearly two frames of bees plus brood.
Keeping counts high (and healthy) can be an important factor for beekeepers, especially those who provide pollination services commercially or need stable populations over winter.
6. European foulbrood (EFB) and Varroa infestation were marginally (not significantly) lower in rough-box colonies.
This data seems to suggest that propolis-rich colonies may face lower disease loads in regards to European foulbrood (EFB) and Varroa mite counts, though the findings were not significant to the point where the publishers could make any such claims.
“The use of rough boxes mitigates some types of pathogen pressure. In year one, rough Varroa mite loads were lower in migratory rough box colonies, compared to migratory control colonies.”
Remember, the rough boxes had roughened interior walls like a tree cavity and the control boxes were smooth, like a traditional wooden hive body.
The scientists say it better than we ever could. Their explanation and findings:
“In our study, Varroa loads in migratory colonies were extremely low overall, with an average of approximately 0.5 mites per 100 bees…the marginal reduction in mite load that we did observe could be explained by recent findings from Pusceddu et al. [22], who found that the application of field-realistic quantities of propolis to artificial brood cells resulted in a near 20% increase in Varroa mortality during brood rearing.”
Expect future research to be conducted to further explore these findings and their significance to reducing disease loads.
7. By year two, there was no effect of box type on honey production.
Some beekeepers reason that if their bees are out collecting propolis for the hive, they will not collect as much nectar and therefore produce as much honey.
This study found that there was no significant change to honey production in stationary colonies. In migratory colonies, they found that rough-box colonies lost some honey production in the first year. But by year two, the rough-box colonies had no change in honey production as compared to the control colonies.
8. Using rough boxes to stimulate the construction of a propolis envelope represents an important opportunity to bolster honey bees’ natural defenses.
Allowing bees to live as nature intended, not so surprisingly, has many benefits.
Giving the bees a box that had natural grooves mimicking the tree hive allowed them to form a propolis envelope and experience a variety of benefits that boosted their natural defenses.
“...recovering these health-supportive behaviors could represent one valuable step towards improved honey bee health [12]. Propolis collection is one example of a natural defense that could be integrated by beekeepers working at a variety of scales to improve colony health.”
9. Using rough boxes to boost propolis collection could be considered an “easy win.”
The idea here is that teeing the bees up with the right equipment is the simple part. They do all of the heavy lifting and it benefits them.
“...implementation [of rough boxes] requires minimal disruption to beekeeping operations.”
No headaches for beekeepers, just giving the bees what they need and want:
“...in addition to modifying box surface texture, further measures should be taken to facilitate the construction of a robust propolis envelope. Some of these measures include fortifying landscapes with resin-producing plants and selecting for bees that engage in resin-hoarding behaviors. Taken together, these actions should contribute substantially to the restoration of the propolis envelope as a natural defense for honey bees.”
10. Using rough boxes offers measurable benefits to honey bee health in a cost-effective manner.
This is the research that fueled the creation of our Propola Hive.
The benefits are clear, and the opportunity to improve the lives of bees is significant.
How could we pass that up?
“Compared to other interventions, using rough boxes to boost propolis collection could be considered an “easy win” because their implementation requires minimal disruption to beekeeping operations and offers measurable benefits to honey bee health in a cost-effective manner.”
If you enjoyed reading along with the research, we recommend watching Dr. Marla Spivak’s presentation at NAHBE.
Simply adding roughened grooves into the interior walls of our Propola Hive encourages bees to create a propolis envelope. With a propolis envelope in place, they are better able to resist disease and raise more bees.
Just like our mission, do good to bees.
Thanks for reading! Share with a beekeeping friend if you found it valuable.