Everyone knows honey, and many people have heard of bee pollen. Bee bread, or perga, is still new to most. All three come from the same hive, but they are made in different ways and taste completely different.
Honey
Bees make honey from flower nectar. They evaporate water from the nectar and store it in the honeycomb. Honey is sweet because it is mostly sugar. For the bees, it is their energy store for winter.
Bee pollen
Bee pollen is flower pollen that bees collect and carry back to the hive on their hind legs, in small pellets. Beekeepers can collect it with a pollen trap at the hive entrance before it ends up in the comb. Bee pollen tastes floral and a little powdery.
Bee bread (perga)
Once the pollen is inside the hive, the bees mix it with honey and their own enzymes and pack it tightly into the honeycomb cells. There it ferments naturally and becomes the colony's food store for winter. This is called perga, or bee bread.
Thanks to the fermentation, bee bread tastes tangy and slightly sour, a bit like sourdough or yogurt.
Bee pollen or bee bread?
The difference is mostly about taste and texture. Bee pollen is dry, floral granules. Bee bread is pollen the bees have already fermented in the comb, and it tastes tangier. Both are bee products, so neither is suitable if you are allergic to pollen or bee products.
Why is bee bread so rare?
Bee bread takes a lot of work to harvest. It is packed tightly into the comb cells, and there is far less of it than honey. In a Polish study, one hive produced on average about 0.7 kg of bee bread a year. That is why you see bee bread in shops much less often than honey or bee pollen.
In short
- Honey: made from flower nectar, sweet
- Bee pollen: collected at the hive entrance, floral and powdery
- Bee bread: pollen the bees have fermented in the comb, tangy and slightly sour
Good to know: bee bread and bee pollen are not suitable if you are allergic to bee products or pollen.
Perga Glow pastilles contain bee bread and berry or fruit powder, and every pastille comes in its own pouch. Try the 15-pastille starter pack and taste all three flavors.
Source: Semkiw P. & Skubida P. (2021). Bee Bread Production: A New Source of Income for Beekeeping Farms? Agriculture 11(6).
