Propolis Salve

A healing salve is a must-have in any natural remedy toolkit, and propolis is the perfect healing agent to be used in such a salve.

Although there are many recipes out there, and the long list of ingredients may seem daunting, a basic salve is really simple to make. The three key components in a propolis salve are:

1. Propolis (duh). This anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory powerhouse is the healing agent in the salve.

2. Oils. Just about any oil will do (choose those that won't go rancid for best shelf life!). In this tutorial, I used coconut oil, olive oil, and sweet olive oil because they were the ones I had on hand.

3. Beeswax. This is what gives the salve its firmness so that it stays solid at room temperature but melts with the heat of your hands. It also seals in the oils when applied to your skin.

The recipe that I used for this salve is loosely based on the recipe by Petra Ahnert in Beehive Alchemy. This book is an excellent resource as you begin to experiment with secondary hive products. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.ca/Beehive-Alchemy-Projects-recipes-propolis/dp/1631594915

The Recipe

It's easy to make any size batch of salve as long as you're comfortable doing a little math. You should always measure your ingredients by weight and stick to the percentage guidelines below:

15% Propolis Oil

27% Beeswax

5% Vitamin E Oil

53% Other Oils

To make your Propolis Oil, simply take your propolis tincture and add an equal amount of oil, then let the alcohol from the tincture evaporate away. You can speed this up by applying low heat.

Making the salve is as easy as melting all of the ingredients, stirring, and pouring.

Now let's get into the math...

I'm going to assume that, like me, you're going to use the amount of propolis you have and that will be your limiting factor, so all the other measurements will be based on that.

Propolis oil weight ÷ 0.15 = Total batch weight

Total batch weight x 0.27 = Weight of beeswax

Total batch weight x 0.05 = Weight of vitamin E oil

Total batch weight x 0.53 = Weight of other oils

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