Much is known about the metabolism of iron in living organisms. For putting theory into practice regarding administering iron to bees, the following points are relevant:

• Iron is often a limiting factor in biological systems. The difficulties are twofold, firstly absorbing iron from the environment and secondly, transporting it to where it is needed.
• Adding extra iron modifies the ratios of the various minerals. A relative deficiency of iron or a relative excess of other minerals is balanced out.
• There may be an exchange of iron for other minerals in many disease processes. For more information, see the section Management through minerals of this website.