**1. Introduction and a brief history**

The antique civilizations always used bee products as valuable therapeutic resources in their medicinal practices. The history of medicine of the Assyrian civilizations, Chinese, Tibetan, Inca, Egyptian, and also the Greco‐Roman is very rich and possess records of centenary formulations, including propolis to treat or prevent diseases. Old Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used propolis to treat wound, cutaneous lesions, ulcers, and chirurgical interventions [1].

In Egypt, propolis was used as one of the main ingredients used in the formulations to embalm cadavers. It was also used by Aristotle, Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galneo as an antiseptic and wound‐healing. The Greeks, including Aristotle and Hippocrates, adopted it as an internal and external healing. Pliny Roman historian refers to propolis as a medicine to reduce swelling and relieve pain [2].

The term "propolis", "pro" in favor of and "polis", "city of bees", which means in defense of the honey comb, was described in the sixteenth century in France [3], and in the seventeenth century, propolis was considered an official drug by London Pharmacopoeia [4]. In the sub‐ sequence centuries, propolis has attracted growing interest due to its medical properties, es‐ pecially in Eastern Europe. In 1908, the first scientific article about propolis chemical properties and composition [5] was published, indexed on Chemical Abstracts. In 1968, the abstract of the first patent was published on Chemical Abstracts [6].

In South Africa, during the war in the end of the nineteenth century, propolis was largely used because of its healing properties [3] and in the Second World War it was used by sever‐ al Soviet clinicians [2].

In the last decades, propolis has gained wide acceptance as traditional medicine in several parts of the world. This disseminated interest in propolis in several countries encouraged a large number of studies considering chemical and biological properties of propolis [7].

Nowadays, in the Brazilian market and in several other countries, it is possible to find prop‐ olis in different presentations, such as liquid or powder extract: in bottles, capsules, tablets, vaporizers, syrups, creams, and among others, aiming to act as an antimicrobial [8–10], anti‐ oxidant [11], immunoregulatory [12–14], anti‐inflammatory [12, 15, 16], antiviral [17] agent, besides several other functionss. A very large number of publications endorsing these bio‐ logical benefits in "*in vitro*", "*in vivo*," and in some clinical trials, is be discussed further in this chapter.

Thus, this chapter presents recent studies about Brazilian types of propolis such as green, red, and brown, considering their chemical composition and some biological properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, and immunoregulatory, safety aspects, extraction process, and technology associated, regulatory aspects, potential market and challenges, as well as tenden‐ cies for a near future.
