Propolis tincture

flyboy · June 19, 2015, 11:38:15 AM

I would like to make some propolis tincture.

1. Has anyone tried it?
2. What recipe?
3. What results?

Dallasbeek · June 19, 2015, 12:28:03 PM

I haven't tried making it, but I can attest to results. I bought some at a health food store and applied it to a knee I had injured 15 years before. The dermatologist said I had "traumatic psoriasis" on the knee and it never healed up. He prescribed a cream that cost me $85 a tube and did little very good. The knee was sometimes bleeding and always rough and scaly.

After about three months of applying propolis to the knee, it was smooth and pretty much healed. Just be careful the applied propolis isg fully dry before letting it touch anything like furniture. My wife's new bedspread still has a little colored spot where my knee touched it and I'll never hear the end of that.

My wife applied it to a mole on her arm for about three weeks and it disappeared- the mole, not the arm

jayj200 · June 19, 2015, 01:15:02 PM

a beer and two egg may remove that stain.
do not just treat one item use this on others
eggs nor beer stains to my knowledge
please do a test stain first after a few minuets rinse

Dallasbeek · June 19, 2015, 01:47:55 PM

Quote from: jayj200 on June 19, 2015, 01:15:02 PM
a beer and two egg may remove that stain.
do not just treat one item use this on others
eggs nor beer stains to my knowledge
please do a test stain first after a few minuets rinse

Thanks, Jay. Maybe that will finally get me out of that doghouse. Now if I can find solutions for all the others.

Colobee · June 19, 2015, 09:56:19 PM

I haven't used it in a tincture, but I gather fresh propolis every year, and wouldn't hesitate to use it on any cut or burn. I've seen it do phenomenal things. Making it more "usable", with a tincture, just seems to make sense, so long as the cutting agent doesn't have too much of a negative impact on the healing properties of the propolis.

On another note - I had a mishap last week with a very hot item. It appeared to be second to third degree burns on a finger & thumb. I immediately applied honey, then wrapped in gauze. Within an hour, the intense stinging/burning sensation subsided. After 3-4 hours, there was little indication of a burn. After a week, it appears I will eventually lose some skin where the "blister" ( which never swelled) manifested - kind of like a callous .

Honey works great on burns!!!

Dallasbeek · June 19, 2015, 10:16:23 PM

I do know you want to use something like vodka to make the tincture, because some people use it internally. I've been told to freeze the propolis, then crush it in a mortar, place it in a bottle and let it sit for (times I've been told vary from days to months), shaking it occasionally until the propolis is in a suspension. Mine came in a small bottle with a built-in brush that I use to apply to the wound.

There are commercially prepared bandages for medical use that are soaked at least on one side with honey. This is one of the oldest treatments known for wound and burn care and now the medical profession is catching up. It is anti-biotic and seals the wound from invasive stuff.

rwlaw · June 20, 2015, 07:32:40 AM

I made a batch at 1/3rd propolis 2/3rd grain alcohol (153 proof product called Diesel). I used grain alcohol in case I wanted to try it for a sore throat, but you can use wood alcohol also. I just stuffed little pieces into a bottle and kept shaking till it dissolved.
There's recipes out there for olive oil and propolis that I want to try too.

Dallasbeek · June 20, 2015, 04:40:44 PM

Quote from: rwlaw on June 20, 2015, 07:32:40 AM
I made a batch at 1/3rd propolis 2/3rd grain alcohol (153 proof product called Diesel). I used grain alcohol in case I wanted to try it for a sore throat, but you can use wood alcohol also. I just stuffed little pieces into a bottle and kept shaking till it dissolved.
There's recipes out there for olive oil and propolis that I want to try too.

How long did it take to dissolve and was the tincture relatively thick or "wattery?"

I hadn't heard of olive oil and propolis. How is that used? Does the propolis dissolve well in oil? The alcohol in a tincture evaporates, but the oil would make it ... What? Like a salve or lotion?

Wombat2 · June 21, 2015, 08:21:52 AM

As a Pharmacist I can tell you most Pharmaceutical tinctures are 10% alcohol except one that is 5% (can't remember which it was - it was 60 years ago but it wasn't propolis ;) )

rwlaw · June 21, 2015, 11:44:33 AM

It took about three weeks of shaking it everyday to dissolve it. You can tell, when you shake the it there won't be bits of propolis left on the side of the bottle. No it wasn't thick, I tore a hunk of hide off my knuckle and just soaked the pad of the band aid used to cover it. Worked great.
I'm thinking the olive oil/propolis tincture would work on the type of wounds that need to be kept open for a bit, like driving a gutter screw into the end of my finger. That's never happened before LOL.
Wombat you could probably get the 10 percent after distillating the bejuses out it, but it'd probably ruin the healing properties.

Dallasbeek · June 21, 2015, 05:01:42 PM

Quote from: rwlaw on June 21, 2015, 11:44:33 AM
It took about three weeks of shaking it everyday to dissolve it. You can tell, when you shake the it there won't be bits of propolis left on the side of the bottle. No it wasn't thick, I tore a hunk of hide off my knuckle and just soaked the pad of the band aid used to cover it. Worked great.
I'm thinking the olive oil/propolis tincture would work on the type of wounds that need to be kept open for a bit, like driving a gutter screw into the end of my finger. That's never happened before LOL.
Wombat you could probably get the 10 percent after distillating the bejuses out it, but it'd probably ruin the healing properties.

Thanks. I can live with 3 weeks. Three months of shaking every day? Maybe not

Gary

biggraham610 · June 22, 2015, 12:09:33 AM

Maybe this will help. G

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~reute001/htm-files/Propolis%20extract.html

or this, it was borrowed from another thread elsewhere. G

Propolis Tincture:

Part 1:

A) First buy an old working electric coffee grinder at a flea market or Goodwill store.
B) Put your propolis chunks in a plastic baggie in your freezer for a couple of days.
C) Take a few chunks of propolis from the freezer and grind them immediately to a powder.
D) Dump the powder on a piece of paper and return it to the freezer. Grind more if necessary.
E) Pour about two inches of White Lightening (Everclear) in a disposable glass bottle with a lid.
F) Add the powdered propolis to the fluid in the bottle while swirling and gently shaking, then cap.
G) Place the capped bottle on top of your water heater or furnace and shake daily for 4-6 weeks.
H) Much of the propolis will dissolve but the beeswax, bee legs, and wood shavings, etc. will not.

Part 2:

I) Form a funnel shape out of a piece of fly screen and line it with a paper coffee filter.
J) Place the funnel/filter over a throw away container, possibly bottom ? of a milk ?bottle? box.
K) Pour the slurry of propolis and alcohol through the funnel/filter
L) The resulting clear dark fluid will be a fully saturated solution, or high concentration propolis tincture.
M) The dregs in the filter can be used as the partial feed stock for the next batch of tincture you make.
N) Bottle the tincture for topical use only and use yourself or sell. You may want to reduce the
Concentration.

BeeMaster2 · June 22, 2015, 06:32:38 AM

G,
Thanks for sharing. I plan on making some. I have about quart of dry Propolis in a jar.
Jim

Dallasbeek · June 22, 2015, 12:31:18 PM

Wow! I paid $10 for about 1 ounce at a Natural Foods Store. Whole Foods charges about $20 for the same amount. At that rate, Graham, you should make more money from propolis tincture than from honey

biggraham610 · June 22, 2015, 02:31:53 PM

I'm just passing it on. I haven't ever made any but plan on it. Found those on a thread at a different site, so I just thought I would pass em on. Let me know how it turns out, I don't have enough to try it yet. I will be collecting from here on out though. G

westhill · June 25, 2015, 10:18:41 PM

I just made some. I filled an 8-oz canning jar (you could use any clean jar though) with good vodka, then added hunks of propolis to it, and shook it whenever I remembered to (usually one or more times a day--I left it on the kitchen counter). After a week the propolis mostly dissolved, so next time I inspected my hive and scraped out some, I added more.

I figured eventually it would hit some maximum concentration and then no more of it would dissolve. Went through the same shake routine. When the second batch of propolis mostly dissolved, I strained out any extra, plus random chunks of wax/bee parts with a fine strainer.

It dissolves better if you leave the propolis in small pieces, rather than caking it together in a big ball.

We make our own mouthwash by taking a 16-oz glass jar and mixing water, drops of various essential oils (peppermint, sage, tea tree, thyme), glycerin, and xylitol. I added a tablespoon of the propolis to it to help a family member who gets mouth sores and has gum issues.

Apart from the mouthwash, we plan to also use our propolis tincture for skin problems, rashes, sore throats, etc. Sometimes I just put a drop of it on my hand. Once the alcohol evaporates, it smells wonderful--reminds me of hiking in a deep, fresh forest.

Dallasbeek · June 25, 2015, 10:30:55 PM

Good for you, Westhill! One thing I read said to freeze the propolis and put it into an OLD or cheap used coffee grinder to make very small bits of propolis that will dissolve easier/faster. Let us know how it works for your friend who has mouth/gum problems, as well as how it works for you.

flyboy · June 26, 2015, 05:39:03 PM

I've started collection jars that are in my bee stuff box and goes out on inspections. One bottle is for comb and one is for propolis. You'all have inspired me.

Dallasbeek · June 26, 2015, 08:05:56 PM

Flyboy, that's y'all. You need to come to Texas or someplace in the South and learn how to talk. Just listen to Obama. When he comes south, he drops all those useless vowels at the ends of words -- like "workin, walkin, talkin, makin," and stuff like that. In fact, I think Hillary has picked that up, too, maybe from Obama or maybe from the time spent in Arkansas, but definitely not her time at Harvard.

flyboy · June 27, 2015, 02:56:34 AM

Quote from: Dallasbeek on June 26, 2015, 08:05:56 PM
Flyboy, that's y'all. You need to come to Texas or someplace in the South and learn how to talk. Just listen to Obama. When he comes south, he drops all those useless vowels at the ends of words -- like "workin, walkin, talkin, makin," and stuff like that. In fact, I think Hillary has picked that up, too, maybe from Obama or maybe from the time spent in Arkansas, but definitely not her time at Harvard.

Yeah I know it's a Canuck disease. We are also obliged to use the Oxford English dictionary so draft beer is draught beer. Can you imagine after a belly full of beer trying to spell it???

Maybe there is some connection in there for why Canadian beer has to be made so strong. In fact when we visit the US we are obliged to get a Molson muscle (beergut) just from all the extra beer we have to drink. ;) It sorta gets some fellas p**d off as it were.

They even have to make spell checks for us Canucks because youse guys insist on spelling colour as color, etc. I read a book on the English language that was quite hilarious. The author explained why you guys spell differently than Canucks and Brits. It had to do with the first major 'Mericun dictionary by Daniel Webster.

Thanks for the laugh.