It is used as ointments for healing animal cuts and wounds. Doctors have experimented with an alcohol tincture for hearing defects. If propolis is mixed with mineral spirits, it can be used as a natural varnish. Famous violinists used propolis in their violin varnish. Since many of our pollinators are now scarce, we are more dependent on the honeybee for crop pollination.
Pollination starts when a field bee crawls into a plant blossom seeking nectar.
The honey bee is dusted with pollen. Then the field bee flies over to another blossom with the pollen in its hair. When the bee lands, the pollen falls onto this blossom's stigma allowing a fruit, vegetable or other crop to grow. Farmers often rent colonies of bees to pollinate their crops. Even though other insects pollinate crops too, honeybees are one of the few that are synchronized and managed with the development of crops.