Jacob Kaal’s first booklet, Apitherapy: Curing with bee products, appeared in 1986 (in Dutch). It was updated and translated into English in 1991 and is now reprinted in the original. The book contains an impressive international bibliography and a systematic, detailed record of known and potential medicinal properties of bee products. Propolis had become a forgotten substance in the West for over a century, until the 1960s, and Jacob was determined to promote its varied medicinal powers. Being a beekeeper, his research always touched ground with the life and wellbeing of bees and people. 

The practical perspective taken and the pioneering research underpinning this volume make it a very valuable source of information for beekeepers, medical practitioners, pharmacists and patients seeking alternative medicine, even after forty years since first publication. But then again, what are two decades in the light of thousands of years in which natural medicine has been used for health purposes.