The Benefits of Date Palm Pollen, a Bee Keeper’s Story

What exactly is bee pollen? It’s the pollen from the flowers and plants that the bees collect and form into little granules to feed the larvae and the queen bee in the hive. Heralded as a super food because of its vitamins, proteins, fatty acids, enzymes, and bioflavonoids. It has powerful antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties that strengthen the capillaries, reduces inflammation, and stimulates the immune system among many other things. I came to understand more of the specific qualities of date palm pollen when I visited Gabrielle Morley at her plantation in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia. There I discovered the beauty date palms have to offer the planet.

A True Date Palm

Date palm ( Phoenix dactylifera) is one of the oldest fruit crops going back at least 5000 years grown originally in desert environments like the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Middle East. This is the true date palm producing the dates for eating. Without dates, humans wouldn’t have survived the arid conditions of the desert which shows the trees resilience in harsh conditions. From early on, the cultivation of dates came to represent virility and fertility.

Canary Island Date Palms

Gabrielle grows over a 1000 Canary Island date palms  Phoenix canariensis for commercial sale, used mainly in landscaping. She also has a small apiary with an abundance of medicinal plants for her bees to forage on along with the date palms. It’s the perfect environment to produce beautiful raw honey . The trees originate from the Canary Islands and are well suited to the Australian subtropical and temperate climates. The dates are not so great tasting but the trees are beautiful and decorative and a great source of shade. You will often see Canary Island date palms lining roads or in parks and gardens.

Therapeutic properties of palm pollen

Fascinated by these trees and discovering the nutritious pollen is highly medicinal, Gabrielle began working with the bees to save her the labour of harvesting the pollen and to produce raw honey. That was three years ago and Gabrielle has extended her love and respect for the date palm tree and has fallen completely under the spell of working with bees. She explains how she came to discover the history, culture and the healing benefits of date palm pollen.

‘My curiosity was ignited a few years ago when my husband, Ronnie, and I were in the Maldives on holiday. We got talking to the maître d of the hotel and when he learnt of what I did for a living he told me it was because of the palm pollen’s fertility compounds that helped his wife to become pregnant’.

Gabrielle went onto learn of the Ayurveda practice acknowledging palm pollen as an aid to fertilty. From the Maldives Ron and Gabrielle travelled to Dubai and there in the souks she saw hanging, garlands of dried flowers, and she recognised them to be the flowers of date palms. Again there was talk of the date palm tree being highly potent and full of healing benefits.

Back in Australia she started researching the history and she tells me about Christopher Columbus in the 1500s loading his ships full of syrup from the date palm trees to keep his men strong and healthy. She connected with universities in the Middle East and was blown away by what she found and began to question why she hadn’t been aware of this before. Why the information is not more widely available. She says, ‘when it comes to natural remedies our culture knows nothing about a lot of things we should know about, we are like sheep with tunnel vision’.

The therapuetic properties of date palm pollen has been studied in other parts of the world too:

‘Date palm pollen (DPP), the male reproductive dust of palm flowers, has long been used as a dietary supplement to increase libido and improve fertility in both women and men. DPP is known to contain a variety of compounds including amino acids, fatty acids, flavonoids, saponins, and sterols. Several experimental studies, along with a few clinical trials, have evaluated the effects of DPP on the reproductive system. ‘ The US National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health

If you take DPP as a supplement it is recommended you have some raw honey alongside it. You’ll get the  added natural health benefits of the raw honey, and it will mask the bitter taste of the palm pollen.

Always check with a doctor or clinician first if you have something wrong with your health.