Caries Prevention That’s the Bees Knees

I know we promised not to report on any more mice/rat-intensive research unless it involved the introduction of the ultimate mouse trap. Intervention on behalf of the beleaguered mouse population by the SPCA, the ACLU and other alphabet-heavy entities has made news coming from mousedom scarce anyway. It is a common misconception that rats are merely mice that work out, an idea that mice have eagerly promulgated, insisting to scientists that rats are far better to experiment on than themselves. We don’t care; kittens are cuter than cats, it’s the same difference.

But suddenly, mice and rats are back in the news, and not only that, but they have formed an unlikely alliance with bees. Normally, rodents and bees have little or no business with each other, social or otherwise. It was the pairing of birds and bees, serving as a parental introduction to pre-adolescent sexual curiosity, that was once popular. Modern children, with access to more specific information, have largely discounted what was patently an obscure relationship between these two disparate species.

It was with some astonishment, then, that we have discovered a phenomenon simultaneously occurring in New York and Brazil involving rats and bees. The fact that this particular research may soon involve humans in such a way as to directly affect the lives of dentists is what causes stringers reporting to the Los Angeles Times to cry out "Stop the presses!" The Times obliged, headlining a 2-inch column on Page A22 with this eye-popping phrase: "Bee Substance Possible Fighter of Tooth Decay."

Alert observers noted long lines of impatient rats queued up outside the University of Rochester in New York and, in some mysterious ESP way that rats have, also outside the State University of Campinas in Brazil. Apparently researchers at these institutions leaked the fact that they had stumbled upon another one of those serendipitous discoveries that scientists are always tripping over, like chocolate is better for zits than Clearasil.

This time it involves a material called "propolis," a common substance bees have had about the hive forever, assigning it no more importance that we would to, say, duct tape or spackle.

Lacking readily available supplies of propolis at neighborhood Home Depot stores, bees cleverly make their own by collecting secretions from trees and other plants, chewing them up and mixing them with beeswax. The beeswax can be purchased in convenient blocks at any supermarket or Pep Boys outlet. Bees use this stuff as cement to hold the hive together. It’s their version of Krazy Glue, without which those little hexagonal segments of beehives would fall apart, turning happy, contently humming honeybees into killer bees with an attitude.

The rodents, though their grapevine, learned that researchers discovered that propolis cut the cavity rate in rats 60 percent, thus the migration to Rochester and Brazil. "Yes!" exulted the rats; this being the first decent thing researchers had offered them in decades. "We want in on this!" You wouldn’t think that rats would be all that concerned with their oral health, what with their antidiscrimination crusades and trying to get better package deals in Hollywood scream movies.

We daresay that dentists, burdened with the pressure of providing perfect smiles for their patients, are somewhat unconcerned with the DMF rate in rodents. This shortsighted attitude must be disheartening to rats and mice. They are not asking whether they are to get this propolis stuff incorporated in cheeseballs, have it with I.V. drips or get it painted on their teeth. All they know is that propolis virtually halts the activity of a key enzyme that forms dental plaque.

As usual, when scientists have had their way with the mice and rats, if the results don’t disclose an unacceptable ratio of fatalities to successes, humans are the next beneficiaries. In the meantime, if you have an apiarist of your acquaintance, you might, sotto voce, hit him up for some propolis to augment your own war on plaque. You wouldn’t want the rats to get wind of it, forming picket lines outside your house and brandishing poorly lettered little signs stating, "PROPOLIS NOW!" and "SPECIEISM!"