Hive Hygiene: How Bees Use Tree Resin to Disinfect The Hive

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Bees might just be the original clean freaks.

Yes, these tiny buzzers are best known for pollinating flowers and making honey, but they also moonlight as construction workers, nurses, undertakers—and now? Janitors with chemistry degrees.

Because when it comes to disinfecting the hive, bees don’t mess around. They use something straight from nature’s medicine cabinet: tree resin.

When a honeybee collects sticky resin from tree buds, she’s not just bringing home crafting supplies. Once back at the hive, the bees mix the resin with beeswax and enzymes to make propolis—a reddish-brown gunk that they smear into every crack, seam, and joint in their hive.

Why?

Because propolis is antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral. It acts like a biological Clorox wipe, helping keep the hive free of harmful microbes, spores, and invaders.

Propolis has been shown to kill E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and even slow the growth of Candida fungus. Not bad for something that looks like melted tree sap.

This behavior isn’t learned—it’s instinctual. Bees don’t take sanitation classes. But they do understand, in their own evolutionary way, that a dirty hive is a dangerous one.

Researchers have even observed bees increasing resin collection in response to illness outbreaks. That’s right—if something infectious hits the hive, the bees up their sanitation game. It’s basically quarantine protocol, 100% naturally enforced.

And some queen bees even prefer to lay eggs in areas coated in propolis, where microbial load is lower. In other words, even royal nurseries get disinfected.

Beekeepers and natural health advocates have long harvested propolis for its medicinal benefits. It’s now found in lozenges, throat sprays, and tinctures—marketed for everything from sore throats to skin conditions. Turns out, bees knew about antiseptics long before we did.

Maybe the next time you reach for hand sanitizer, thank a honeybee.