Bee bread is an important aspect for the balance of the family and a great help in the prevention of infection cycles. The lack of adequate nutrition leads to poor development of the larvae which makes them more vulnerable and exposed to disease.

Probee®, as is shown below, with its bacteria contributes significantly to the production of the main food eaten by bees.

M. Gillam between 1980 and 1990 studied extensively bacteria and fungi that live in the digestive tract of bees and that they exchange with each other. Recently, in 2008, Olofsson and other authors have shown the presence of twelve different types of lactobacilli in the stomach of honeybees. It has been verified that the worker bees when they emerge from the cell have no bacteria in their digestive system and then acquire them by contact with other bees.

As well as the microbes are present in our digestive system and are useful to assimilate food, in a similar way in the case of honeybees microbes are involved in pollen transformation into food.

The pollen conversion into food is a dynamic process, which begins when the forager come back to the hive  and puts the pollen in the cells in the form of 'balls'. Thereafter nectar is added from other worker bees and for about 12 hours the pollen will contain a large number of microbes.

While the worker bee adds nectar it transfers lactobacilli from his stomach which reduces the pH of the pollen (becomes more acidic) and consequently begins the fermentation that lasts 15 days. After six weeks there are a large number of different fungi and molds.


In the figure below it is summed up the sequence of how microbes work to convert the pollen into a food for the honeybees (bee bread).

Microbes are therefore an essential element that helps to give strength to the family.

The environment can change this process? Yes, as the growth of healthy microbes in a family is in close relation to pollen and nectar. If the pollen is contaminated with fungicides, pesticides and antibiotics often used in agriculture for fruit crops the process described does not develop fully and comes to have a food of poor nutritional properties with obvious consequences.

Organic acids such as formic acid, used to combat Varroa can alter the transformation of pollen? The formic acid and oxalic acid have antibacterial action, acting also on the development of bacteria during processing of pollen, slowing it down and causing a reduction of the final quality of the food.

From all this it is clear the importance of maintaining a balance in the microbes that are necessary for the transformation from pollen into healthy food.

Administering regularly ProBee® we provide the bees with what they need to rebalance a situation that is deteriorated by the various illustrated components.

Another commonly claimed benefits of probiotics include the strengthening of the immune system,

the decrease of potentially pathogenic  microorganisms, the protection of DNA.

Probee® provide the honeybees with bacteria that are essential for the prevention of the spread of diseases in the family.

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