Bee bread or bee pollen[1] is a food supplement consisting of pollen that has been packed by worker honeybees into granules, with added honey or nectar. Foraging bees bring pollen back to the hive and pass it off to another worker bee. This bee will pack the pollen into a cell with its head. During the packing, the pollen is mixed with nectar, enzymes, fungi and bacteria, organisms that transform the pollen into bee bread. The resulting material is higher in nutrition than the untreated pollen. Bee bread is the primary source of protein for the hive.[2]
Like royal jelly, honey and propolis, other well-known honey bee products, the exact chemical composition of pollen gathered depends on which plants the worker bees are gathering the pollen from, and can vary from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, colony to colony, even in the same apiary, and no two samples of bee bread will be exactly identical. Accordingly, chemical and nutritional analyses of bee bread apply only to the specific samples being tested, and cannot be extrapolated to samples gathered in other places or other times. Although there is no specific chemical composition, the average composition has been said to be 55% carbohydrates, 35% proteins, 3% minerals and vitamins, 2% fatty acids, and 5% of diverse other components.[3]
A recent study of samples of bee bread showed they may contain 188 kinds of fungi and 29 kinds of bacteria.[4] Bee bread is sometimes referred to as ambrosia.[5]
Bee bread is used in naturopathic medicine traditions and as a nutritional supplement, although exposure may trigger allergic or anaphylactic reactions in sensitive people.[1]