BY SANDRA GUY

It’s time to get serious about sunscreen — and you can help the endangered bee while you’re at it.

Bees could certainly use your help. Forty percent of the bee colonies that beekeepers oversee die each year because of toxic pesticides and development that destroys bee-nourishing plants.

Yet bees serve such vital functions, not just by pollinating plants, but also by making propolis, or bee glue, from poplar and cone-bearing trees.

Propolis — a sticky, reddish-brown glue — comes from beeswax combining with resin, pollen, balsams and tree sap that bees collect while they flit from plants to tree buds.

The glue holds beehives together, and research has shown its components can be effective as broad spectrum UVB and UVA photo-protection sunscreens. UVA exposure penetrates the skin more deeply than does UVB and contributes to wrinkles by degrading collagen.

Sunscreen with propolis got a boost in 2021 when Black-ish actress Tracee Elllis Ross told Marie Claire magazine that her favorite was Epicuren’s X-Treme Cream Propolis Sunscreen SPF 45+.

But be careful. Test a small amount first if you are allergic to bee stings.