The COLOSS (Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes) BEEBOOK is a unique venture that aims to standardise methods for studying the honey bee. It is a practical manual intended for scientists, extension specialists and beekeepers, compiling standard methods in all fields of research on the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Since the original publication of the first two volumes in 2013, the BEEBOOK has become the definitive bee research manual, and the original papers have been downloaded some 180,000 times and cited in more than 2,300 scientific papers. The hard copy volumes have proved invaluable at the laboratory bench. The new Volume III contains seven peer-reviewed chapters written by 125 authors from 23 countries which cover the major honey bee hive products: royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, brood, honey, venom and pollen. These cover not only the use of these products by the bees themselves, but also their use as human food, and their growing use in human medicine.