Bee pollen is a natural product made by bees (Apis mellifera). The main component of bee pollen is pollen collected from various plants, such as dandelion, rape, clover, lime, willow, and many more. Collected pollen is first treated with bee saliva enzymes, such as amylase and catalase, then stuck together by nectar and formed into small granules which are called bee pollen. Bee pollen is rich in a plethora of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and phenolic compounds which have positive effects on human health [1]. Unfortunately, the bioavailability of bee pollen is rather limited, due to a specific pollen wall, which is named exine. This exine wall is made out of sporopollenin, which makes the wall extremely elastic, sturdy, and resilient to chemical degradation. Due to the exine wall resilience to chemical degradation, humans only digest roughly 10-15% of bee pollen [2].
Several methods were described for the improvement of the bioavailability of bee pollen in the scientific literature, such as fermentation with kombucha [3], lactic acid bacteria [4], enzymatic hydrolysis [5], ultrasonic treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis together with ultrasonic treatment [5, 6]. All these methods showed promising results in the increase of bee pollen bioavailability, although, it is quite difficult to compare various treatment methods applied in different studies and select a better one due to the different parameters used during the experiments, such as temperature, bacteria culture, treatment time, ultrasonic frequency and different bee pollen botanic and geographic origin.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate and compare the impact of different bee pollen treatment methods on their biological activity. In this project, a Lithuanian bee pollen sample was treated with tibico (water kefir) and kombucha (tea fungus) symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast, tibico and kombucha mixture, pure lactic acid bacteria (Bifidobacterium infantis), hydrolytic enzymes, ultrasound, or ultrasound combined together with previously mentioned methods of the treatment. The changes in total phenolic compound content were evaluated in the samples before and after the treatment by spectrophotometric tests [7].
Results showed that all applied methods allowed to increase the release of biologically valuable bee pollen compounds. The increased level depended on the treatment method, however, the impact of bee pollen botanical origin should also be considered in future studies.