CC Pollen - High Desert Bee Pollen Granules Bag - 1 lb.

CC Pollen High Desert Bee Pollen Granules Bag 1 lb. (454 g)

CC Pollen High Desert Bee Pollen Granules is 100% U.S. sourced Bee Pollen from High Desert. This Bee Pollen is frozen at the time of collection and cold-stored to help maximize bioactivity of enzymes, bioflavonoids, antioxidants and other phytonutrients. Bee Pollen is a natural, whole food with an outstanding ORAC value. High Desert Bee Pollen comes in an assortment of loose granules, capsules and tablets. CC Pollen has the only U.S. Bee Pollen and has been collected from diverse geographic areas.

Bee Pollen Alert!
Not all bee pollen products are equal. Proper quality control, processing and cold storage are all critical and expensive steps when manufacturing a raw, unprocessed superfood like bee pollen. Processing techniques have been developed to increase shelf life by preventing spoilage, but bee pollen is basically fresh produce, and like any living food, if you kill the nutrients with processing techniques, it ceases to be living! Processed pollen has been known to be baked to remove moisture, irradiated to prevent spoilage, and has spent minimal, if any, time in cold storage.

Heat Is The Enemy!
Did you know that enzymes begin to be denatured at 118 degrees F? Enzymes are an important component of bee pollen, and they are only one of the many classes of nutrients in bee pollen that exhibit bioactivity. Other classes of bioactive phytonutrients found in bee pollen include polyphenols, phytosterols, carotenoids and more. Excessive exposure to heat can degrade the bioactivity of certain nutrients. High Desert Bee Pollen is stored cold from receiving, through processing, until shipped to you. When you buy High Desert Bee Pollen, look at the granules. You'll find them semi-moist and fresh. Some other brands of bee pollen granules are hard and dry. This is the compromise: some companies will not go to the expense of cold storing their product, so they sacrifice nutritional integrity for increased shelf life. You benefit from neither! Would you rather eat a fresh apple, or a dehydrated apple? Go for the freshness!

Blending Is Important For A Balanced Nutritional Profile
A lot of health food stores sell local bee pollen, which can be very good quality if it is cold-stored and packaged correctly. However, there is a nutritional advantage to eating pollen blended from different geographic areas. Blending pollen from different geographic areas produces a product with a more balanced nutritional profile than that of local pollens. Look at your local bee pollen. It is mostly one single color. That's because it is mostly single source pollen, predominantly from a limited number of species of plant. Look at High Desert Bee Pollen and you will see a rainbow or hues of colors. Each color represents a different species of plant. CC Pollen collects bee pollen from a wide range of states and geographic areas and blend the different pollen together. This is important for a balanced nutritional profile, especially considering the soil depletion of minerals and nutrients in certain areas. Only by blending pollen of different species and from different areas and climates can you achieve the balanced nutritional profile of High Desert Bee Pollen. Fill in the nutritional gaps in your diet!

The First And The Best!
In the 1970's, Royden Brown patented the first bee pollen collection device. Since that time, he tirelessly promoted beehive products. He single-handedly created the industry that you see today. His company, CC Pollen and its High Desert brand, is known around the globe as the standard by which other beehive products are measured.

The Story of Bee Pollen: Where Nature Begins

Part One: What Is Bee Pollen?
While most people recognize the term bee pollen, many people do not know what bee pollen actually is or what it has to offer. Bee Pollen is one of nature's unique and most powerful foods. It is flower pollen that bees collect for food. Bee Pollen offers a treasure trove of special plant nutrients. Here are some qualities that make Bee Pollen unique:

1. The nutrients found in Bee Pollen are extremely high quality. Not only does bee pollen contain high quality nutrients that can be burned as fuel, it also provides nutrients that are helpful in maintaining and promoting health.
2. The nutritional makeup of Bee Pollen is an extremely broad spectrum. The wide range of nutrients found in Bee Pollen include polyphenols, enzymes, beneficial fatty acids, free amino acids, vitamin complexes, chelated minerals and trace elements, as well as a large array of phytonutrients that have yet to be identified. This nutritional diversity makes Bee Pollen an ideal dietary supplement as a complement and boost to a well-rounded diet.
3. The nutrients in Bee Pollen are very concentrated. This nutritional density means that even small amounts provide effective and valuable levels of important nutrients. In other words, bee pollen, as a food source or as a supplement provides low volume, but high intensity, nutrition.

An important question is, how did bee pollen become such a superfood? In nature, everything happens for a reason. Pollen's primary function is to act as the male spore in the reproductive cycle. It is not necessary for pollen to be nutritious to fulfill that duty. The reproductive spores of other plants and animals are not nutritious. So how and why did bee pollen develop into such a unique, broad-spectrum source of nutrients? To answer that question, you must first examine the relationship between flowering plants and bees, and see how that relationship evolved over time.

Part Two: The Symbiotic Relationship
150 million years ago, flowering plants first appeared on Earth. This was an extremely important event in Earth's history, because for the first time, nutrients became concentrated into plant structures, called fruits and vegetables. The development of fruits and vegetables was a pre-condition for the evolution of man. Fruits and vegetables provided mammals with the food they needed to have in order to evolve. In other words, without bees and flowering plants, humans may not have evolved at all.

Since their first appearance on this planet, flowering plants and bees formed a symbiotic partnership. In other words, they developed a relationship in which they both helped with each other, in extremely important, and mutually beneficial ways.

Pollen is the male reproductive spore of the plants. Flowers produce pollen to fertilize other flowers. But for this to happen, pollen must get from the flower of one plant to fertilize the flower of another plant. How does it happen? As everyone knows, bees do the work, depositing pollen from flower to flower. When bees visit flowers, they fertilize them by spreading the pollen that they collected from previous plants. This simple act, repeated over and over again, becomes the force that re-starts the life cycle of this planet every spring. It is the genesis of the food chain.

This is obviously an important service for the plant, but how does the bee benefit? Bees collect pollen for food. The lifespan of a worker bee is only 7-8 weeks. Bees accomplish a tremendous amount of work during that short period of time, and their metabolisms run at very high levels. Just as a racecar needs more powerful fuel to run well and fast, bees require a high-intensity diet to satisfy their nutritional requirements. Besides honey, which provides calories to burn as fuel, bee pollen is all that bees eat. In the evolutionary process, pollen that bees collect has evolved into the richest fuel possible. Pollen provides the nutritional building blocks needed to nurture the young and grow the population of the hive. In the spring, when bees start to bring pollen back to the hive, that is a signal to the Queen that she can start laying eggs. Pollen, then, is essential nutrition for the bees. Since both the bees and the flowers benefit, their relationship is called a symbiotic relationship.

The Evolution Of Bee Pollen
The development of every plant and animal on the planet was shaped by evolution. Evolution is driven by gene mutations, or genetic accidents. Most mutations cause detrimental changes that cause the plant or animal to die. However, on very rare occasions, beneficial mutations occur, and these are passed on to successive generations - as Nature selects for stronger, more optimal individuals or in popular terms 'survival of the fittest.' Beneficial mutations allow plant and animals develop a competitive edge over similar plants in the battle for reproduction and survival.

Here's an example: in the rainforest, there is a huge variety of plants. In fact, there are so many plants that they battle each other for space and sunlight. The trees that have evolved to grow the tallest, and the fastest, out-compete the other trees in the race for sunlight. They are the plants that win the battle for survival. However, this may be temporary, because other plants are evolving to become more competitive with the leaders. Evolution is an on-going competition.

In much the same way that rainforest trees compete for sunlight, flowering plants compete with each other for the bees service. The ability of a flowering plant to attract bees translates directly into their reproductive successes. If bees give a greater share of attention to a certain species of plant, then that plant will propagate more and will become the dominant plant in the area. While bees collect pollen from all types of plants, they show preferences for certain types of pollen. The pollen that is most attractive to bees, naturally, is pollen that provides the best nutrients for their health. In this plant competition, reproductive success is driven by the ability to evolve the most nutritious pollen that will attract the most bees. Plants with lower quality pollen are then driven to evolve higher quality pollen in order to become more competitive for the bees' attention.

150 million years of this evolutionary pressure has driven bee pollen to become more and more nutritionally superior. The end product of this process of natural selection is bee pollen with high intensity nutrition.

Part Three: Bee Pollen Studies
So what's on the menu? What does CC Pollen mean by intense nutrition? As has been described, bee pollen nutrients do more than just provide calories to burn as fuel. Recently, researchers have begun to study specific nutrients, and also, classes of nutrients, that have qualitative, or beneficial, effects on the living system in other words, nutrients that help the human body optimize its normal functions and promote a state of health. One important activity that researchers focus on is antioxidant activity.

What does antioxidant activity mean? In the body, unstable oxygen molecules, or free radicals, create havoc with the living system. Free radicals are also Reactive Oxygen Species, and they are created by glitches in the body's normal metabolism. They are also created by environmental toxins, smoking, aging, and and destructive mechanisms. The normal lifespan of a free radical is one millionth of a second. That is because they are so unstable that they will very quickly use their biochemical force to stabilize themselves. Free radicals exist only long enough for them to bump into something and capture enough electrons or hydrogen atoms to achieve a stable form. This can be extremely destructive for the unwilling donor. Free radical damage is associated with many degenerative processes of the body, including aging. Examples of free radicals are H202 (hydrogen peroxide), CO (carbon monoxide), O (singlet oxygen), O2- (superoxide), and OH (hydroxy molecules). Note that all of these molecules contain oxygen. The problem is that these molecules are chemically unstable antioxidants neutralize these reactive oxygen molecules and make them stable.

Luckily for the body, antioxidants can neutralize free radicals before they can do too much damage to tissues. Antioxidants quench free radicals by efficiently smothering and stabilizing them. They then recharge themselves by interacting with a complex network of other antioxidants.

Most dietary antioxidants are bioflavonoids. Bee Pollen contains large amounts of bioflavonoids, and that is why it shows so much antioxidant activity. But besides performing antioxidant duties, scientific studies have shown that bioflavonoids also perform many other important functions in the body.

Certain bioflavonoids increase capillary strength in the body; some benefit the liver. Other bioflavonoids help maintain bone density, and the list goes on and on. The presence of antioxidant bioflavonoids should be considered significant for more than just the antioxidant protection they provide.

Part Four: The Use Of Bee Pollen
What does all this mean in practical application to the human diet? It is important to achieve a diet that provides a good balance of all types of nutrients. Because of the broad spectrum of nutrients that bee pollen offers, it can be an excellent addition to a diet. Bee pollen can make it easy to fill in the gaps in a person's nutritional profile especially when you don't consume all of your recommended 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. That is one reasons why bee pollen is such a valuable supplement to the diet, because it supplies many of the dietary antioxidants, bioflavonoids and polyphenols that you are missing by not eating the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables.

In complementary medicine, many, if not all, of the effective protocols call for a cleansing and detoxifying diet. This is usually accomplished by eliminating processed foods, such as refined white bread and pasta, as well as congestive foods like cheese and dairy products. It is important to replace these harmful foods with high-quality whole foods, like fruits, vegetables, and bee pollen and promote health. Bee pollen can be an essential component for a high-quality dietary program, because it is such a potent and high quality source of nutrients.

Many people place a lot of faith in the power of supplements. There are many supplements on the market that can be highly effective. But that diet is the foundation of health. This means that, fundamentally, diet must be the platform on which optimal health occurs, not the obstacles that prevents it from happening. Optimal health occurs when the body can effectively martial its own defensive and healing resources. For that to happen, the body must be nutritionally fortified and strengthened in a way that allows its immune system to react, defend and fight, rather than be hindered by a poor, congestive diet. Supplementing with bee pollen can be an important first step in the process of developing a sound, high quality diet.

To accomplish great things, work is required. For optimal health, there is no such thing as a "silver bullet," or a table that makes everything healthy and whole. For optimal health, diet is the foundation, and it requires work to make it right.

Let High Desert Bee Pollen help you build your foundation of health.

The Story Of Royal Jelly
Royal Jelly is another of Nature's Superfoods. Royal Jelly is a special substance of the beehive. Royal Jelly is solely responsible for the incredible transformation of a queen bee from an ordinary worker bee. The queen bee begins life genetically identical to any of the sexless worker bees. A group of bees called Nurse Bees produce Royal Jelly for the hive. They eat large amounts of Bee Pollen to use as the raw ingredients for the production of Royal Jelly by their bodies. The Nurse Bees then secrete Royal Jelly by their pharyngeal glands. The Royal Jelly is fed directly to the "Queen To Be." Soon after starting this diet, she is transformed into a larger, superior bee. She matures one and a half times faster than normal bees. She also grows 40% larger in size and weighs 60% more. During her life she will lay over 3 million eggs, which weigh more than 3500 times her body weight. She will live 5 to 7 years while the workers only live 7 to 8 weeks. All this is possible due to the miracle of royal jelly!

What Is The Composition Of Royal Jelly?
Royal Jelly is so complex that it has not yet been possible to fully analyze it. Of course, it is impossible to synthesize it in a lab! It is known that Royal Jelly contains the following: natural hormones, all of the B-complex vitamins, and it is rich in pantothenic acid. It also contains nucleic acids, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids (especially Omega 3's), acetyl choline, lecithin, collagen and gamma globulin - a key component of the immune system. Of all of the Superfoods, Royal Jelly is the most intriguing, both nutritionally and effectively!

Royal Jelly is another of Nature's Superfoods. Royal Jelly is a fragile product, so it makes sense to buy from people who are experienced in marketing beehive products - the CC Pollen Company. Royal Jelly's nutrients are particularly sensitive to heat. High Desert Royal Jelly is always handled with special care.

CC Pollen supplies Royal Jelly in two different forms: freeze-dried powder and liquid Royal Jelly mixed with honey. These are the best forms to preserve the full biological activity for maximum benefit to the user. Raw Honey acts as a natural preservative and provides a tasty and healthy way to consume the product. There is also High Desert Freeze Dried Royal Jelly Powder. Lyophilization is important to stabilize the nutrients of Royal Jelly. High Desert Royal Jelly can be purchased as a loose powder or in easy-to-use capsules or chewable tablets.

What is Bee Propolis?
To appreciate propolis, in modern day terms, one most realize that propolis meant to ancient cultures. To understand the significance of propolis to man, one must first understand its significance to bees. And to understand what propolis means to bees, one must understand what its raw material, tree resin, means to trees. Finally, to decipher what propolis means to science, and how propolis fits into the framework of biological science, and how propolis means to science, and how propolis fits into the framework of biological science and the eco-system, you must first understand, fundamentally, the process and the goals of scientific research.

Propolis In The Beehive
The word PROPOLIS is reputed to have been coined by Aristotle, from the Greek words pro (before) and polis (city) meaning Before The City or Defender Of The City. In his writings, Aristotle showed a remarkably accurate and detailed knowledge of bee propolis. The name, Defender Of The City, is a very appropriate term to describe the role of propolis in the beehive.

Bees use propolis to virtually encase the inside of the hive. It is used to caulk and seal every crack, and a very thin coat of propolis is spread over the surfaces of the honeycomb cells, inside and out. This is important for the prevention of infection in the honeycomb. Propolis is used to sterilize the honeycomb cells that contain the larvae, as well as the cells that store the honey and bee pollen. Propolis is also used extensively at the entrance of the hive to form an elaborate, winding tunnel. Bees literally have to crawl through a tight tunnel of propolis to enter and leave the hive. In this way, bees are cleansed of microbes as they enter the hive, and the sterility of the beehive is maintained. In fact, the beehive is the most sterile environment found in nature. The fact that this structure, located in the wild, and full of food organisms, can be kept free of disease and infection is quite remarkable. In very real terms, propolis functions are the natural defense and immune system of the beehive.

Bees collect tree resin for propolis, just as they collect pollen and honey for food. Although it is still a matter of debate, research indicates that the chemical structure of resin is altered by the bees secretions during the collection process. Bees work the resin with their front legs, while adding saliva and beeswax to the mixture. The saliva and other secretions are catalysts for biochemical changes within the propolis. The resin is passed to their back legs for storage in their pollen sacs. Bees then transport the resin back to the hive, where it is stored or used.

Bees show definite preferences for certain species of tree resins in their collection of propolis. It appears that bees have unerringly identified the highest quality, and most appropriate raw material to use for propolis. The bees' secretions then transform the resin to optimize the benefits of propoilis.

Propolis In History
Man has used propolis for healing since ancient times. The first known users of substances from the beehive were the Egyptians, and the preservative qualities of the beehive were well known to them. The ancient Egyptians believed that they would need their bodies in the afterlife. In order to preserve their dead bodies, they would melt down a whole hive, including the honey, wax and propolis, and use the mixture to coat bandages used in their mummification process. The Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians used another method of preservation for burial. This involved immersing the dead bodies in large jars of honey and sealing them with wax. On his deathbed, the Greek conqueror Alexander The Great ordered himself to be buried in this way. His teacher, Aristotle, studied and wrote extensively about propolis, and was the first to specifically identify propolis as a substance. Aristotle also write the scientific study of the honeybee.

The Greek physician, Hippocrates (460-377 BC), who is considered to be the father of modern medicine, recognized the healing properties of propolis. Hippocrates prescribed propolis for different types of ailments. The Greeks were also the first to develop beehives, and honey, as agricultural products. The Romans further developed beekeeping and expanded on the knowledge and benefits of propolis. Pliny the Elder, the family Roman Researcher and natural historian, showed a detailed understanding of propolis in the beehive. He was also well versed in the application of propolis.

The Raw Materials of Propolis: Tree Resins
The story of propolis is much different than the story of bee pollen. Propolis contains many of the same polyphenols found in bee pollen, but in much higher quantities. However, while bees eat pollen for food, they do not eat propolis. As previously discussed, the nutritional value of pollen is driven by the symbiotic relationship of plants and bees. However, propolis is not the product of a similar symbiotic relationship. While bees benefit from collecting tree resins for propolis, trees do not benefit from the bees collection of propolis in return. The beneficial properties of tree resins have evolved for the trees, although the bees were quick to discover and use tree resins for their own uses.

Therefore, to understand propolis, one must first understand tree resin, and what tree resin does as its primary function. As you have already seen, propolis functions as the immune system of the beehive. It is not surprising, then, that tree resin functions as the immune system of the trees.

Historically, indigenous people have used various tree resins as natural medicines for health and healing. In the Christian religion, two of the three gifts from the wise men to the infant Jesus were tree resins, Frankincense and Myrrh. Modern science has since validated both as valuable for health and healing. Tribes of the rain forest use numerous tree resins for a variety of treatments. Romans also used resins for medicinal purposes. The Roman natural historian, Pliny the Elder, wrote extensively about preventing wine from turning to vinegar by adding tree resins. Pine, cedar and often terebinth (which Pliny described as the Best and Most Elegant resin) - were added to Roman wines for this purpose. Modern researchers have shown that certain tree resins, like propolis, can kill bacteria, thereby protecting organic compounds from degradation.

When physical damage occurs to trees, then tree resin, or sap, floods into the area and seals it off. In this way, the damaged tissues are protected from infection from bacteria or fungi. Similarly, when parasites, such as bark beetles, attack a tree, tree resin flows into the wounded area and kills the insects and their larvae. Tree resins and waxes are secreted onto the surfaces of sensitive tissues, such as delicate new buds, to protect against harmful ultraviolet radiation. Tree resin screens out harmful radiation, and protects the buds from damage. Ultraviolet radiation also causes free radicals, and tree resin acts as antioxidants to smother the free radicals before they can cause damage. How does tree resin work to provide these protective benefits? Researchers look to polyphenols as the answer.

Tree resins typically have high concentrations of polyphenols. Many polyphenols have been shown to be anti microbial against bacteria, fungi and viruses. These actions are essential to the immune defense of the tree. Polyphenols have also been shown to play important roles in the trees biochemical response to stress, disease and physical damage. Polyphenols are also present in high concentrations in developing leaves and buds. Their presence there indicates that in addition to their protective roles, they may also play a role in the development and maturation of plant tissues.

Practical Applications of Propolis
Polyphenols are being identified as the class of nutrients responsible for the most significant health-promoting effects. Consequently, products featuring isolated polyphenols are common in the health food market in the U.S. and elsewhere. Examples include products and ingredients such as Pycogenol, Soy Isoflavones, Lipoic Acid, Lignans, Quercetin, Rutin, Anthocyanins, and Proanthocyanidins. Sales of these products is driven by published research. Individually, these polyphenols provide substantial benefits. However, propolis is a much different product. No other substance in nature provides the broad range of polyphenols that propolis provides. In fact, propolis polyphenols do not need to be isolated and concentrated, because they exist naturally in a concentrated form. And the broad spectrum of polyphenols means that the benefits are not restricted to the benefits of a single polyphenol, but, rather, offers the combination of a natural mixture of different polyphenols.

The polyphenols of propolis include many compounds that researchers are excited about. Propolis also contains many compounds that have not been identified yet, or studied by science, e.g. non-polyphenolics. Researchers are being challenged, however, because they are beginning to notice that what is significant with respect to the activities of propolis is the combined activity of the polyphenols, or the synergy. A study from Bulgaria, published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 64 (1999) 235-240, analyzed propolis from twelve different regions of the world. What it found was that the individual polyphenols found in different types of propolis differed radically from each other. Specific polyphenols that were considered significant in one type of propolis were virtually absent in others. Surprisingly, however, the beneficial activities were nearly the same for all propolis samples. This study suggests that specific polyphenols may be less significant than the synergistic interaction of the full spectrum of polyphenols.. The conclusion that the authors draw in this study is that the individual purified polyphenols are not as powerful as the full spectrum of polyphenols in whole propolis.

In other words, researchers have found that if you isolate a compound from propolis it still does not outperform whole propolis, no matter how high a concentration is used. The effect of whole propolis is greater than the sum of its parts. The modes of action of propolis is proving to be more than results of single nutrients.

These studies in turn suggest that bee propolis has more nutritive value than any single polyphenol ingredient or supplement. Scientists acknowledge the existence of synergy as a powerful force of nature, but they have no means to study it. That is because too many variables in research lead to inconclusive results. Research requires single compounds. So, as tantalizing as propolis is, its complexity still defies and confounds researchers.

CC Pollen has its own Propolis extraction manufacturing facility. They have found that the lack of quality in some commercially available bee propolis makes this product insufficient for customers' high standards. They created their own high-tech plant, owned and operated by the CC Pollen Company, because they found out that in order to do propolis right, you have to do it yourself.