Howland Blackiston - Honey For Dummies

Understanding apitherapy

Exploring bee venom and other therapeutic bee-related substances

Using products of the honey bee for health and beauty

Honey bees are sophisticated creatures, producing many substances (besides honey) that have proven health benefits for humans and some animals. The study and use of these products for healing and maintaining health is called apitherapy or “bee therapy” and include use of bee venom, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, beeswax, and honey.

Apitherapy gained national recognition through Charles Mraz, a beekeeper who founded the American Apitherapy Society (AAS) in the 1930s. During his lifetime he treated people with arthritis pain, multiple sclerosis, and other autoimmune diseases with bee stings and products of the hive. (He chronicles his personal journey as a pioneering healer along with case studies in his book Health and the Honeybees that was published in 1955.) The AAS continues to be dedicated to educating medical professionals, beekeepers, and the public about the benefits of bee medicine.

Well before the AAS was established, honey and bees were used as medicine for thousands of years. Evidence exists that the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Chinese, Greeks, and even Romans employed honey for various treatments, including wound care and diseases of the intestine. The oldest known medical text of Egypt dating back to 1553–1550 BC is known as Papyrus Ebers. There are passages about using honey along with herbal remedies as a natural antibiotic and to dress wounds. In 50 AD, Dioscorides the physician to the Roman army, wrote: “Honey is good for all rotten and hollow ulcers,” alluding to treating the soldiers who suffered infected wounds during war time.

My first experience with apitherapy was at an American Apitherapy Society conference. I had always been interested in alternative medicine and wanted to learn more about how honey and bee venom were applied as a therapeutic treatment. So I signed myself up for the CMAC (Charles Mraz Apitherapy Course) certification course (see the following figure for a photo of Charles Mraz). It was three days of talks and workshops in the largely unknown world of honey-bee medicine. During one lecture we were told that after a short coffee break we would watch a live stinging demonstration by a trained apitherapist, Dr. Theo Cherbuliz, and a willing volunteer. I could not imagine how a bee could be forced to sting someone on purpose. Would the speaker release a handful of live honey bees into the room with hopes they would only sting the volunteer? I would quickly learn that bee stings are administered by a controlled procedure that requires specialized training and the use of a tool similar to a tweezer to direct the bee. A micro-sting would be given to the patient in a precise area on the body along a meridian similar to acupuncture points as a test. Later, I learned that the volunteer was not so random and had been receiving bee venom therapy (BVT) for pain. The conference ended with audience members sharing their personal stories about how they found relief in bee venom when traditional medicine had failed them. That’s when I became teary eyed with a new appreciation of honey bees.

As early as 350 BC, Hippocrates, the Greek physician known as the “Father of Medicine,” began using bee venom therapy to relieve joint pain and arthritis in his patients with some success. He also clearly understood the value of honey related to health and well-being and prescribed simple mixtures of honey and vinegar (oxymel) for pain and honey and water (hydromel) for fevers. He was a firm believer in the importance of honey’s nutrition value to prevent or cure diseases and he is remembered for his famous quote “Our food should be our medicine and medicine be our food.” During his work as a physician, he often prescribed honey internally and externally, as a contraceptive, laxative, or cough and sore throat reliever.

In this chapter, I discuss products of the beehive and how they have been used for health and healing.

This ancient practice of stinging with live honey bees can be traced back to the second century BC in China where acupuncture was being used to promote health and healing by balancing the flow of energy within the body. By inserting fine needles at precise points along neurological trigger points, the theory is acupuncture opens up energy channels called meridians to release the body’s natural supply of cortisone (cortisol). In turn, cortisone relieves inflammation and pain related to autoimmune diseases.

Bee venom is a white liquid released when a female worker honey bee stings in an attempt to protect her young, hive, and honey. Stinging is a defensive behavior that results in her losing her life when her stinger, venom sac, and the muscles and nerves surrounding it are ripped out of her abdomen as she pulls away from the point of her sting. BVT follows the same protocol as acupuncture by substituting a female honey-bee’s stinger for a needle to prick the body in controlled doses by a trained apitherapist (see Figure 4-1). This practice has helped some people find relief from chronic pain associated with arthritis, multiple sclerosis, migraines, and lupus, in addition to simply boosting the immune system. Bee venom therapy has been used even to kill cancer cells. Today, BVT is used in hospitals around the world; the most famous is the bee therapy clinic Lianyungang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Courtesy of Champlain Valley Apiaries

FIGURE 4-1:Charles Mraz stinging a patient with a live honey bee to deliver bee venom offering relief from chronic arthritis pain.

Generally, BVT is not recognized in the United States; however, the Winchester Hospital in Massachusetts has a BVT clinic if you are looking for alternative treatments.

The greatest risk of using BVT as a medical treatment is anaphylactic shock, which is a severe allergic reaction that requires immediate medical attention. If you are stung by a bee for any reason and have trouble breathing, or feel faint or unwell, seek immediate medical attention at your nearest hospital. For this reason, patients who are considering BVT are carefully profiled before being administered bee venom. Most importantly they must cleanse their body of beta blockers, which suppress the immune system, and any anti-inflammatory drugs, including alcoholic beverages. Like any medical treatments, they are not a substitute for a healthy lifestyle, diet, exercise, and emotional balance or the care of a medical professional.

Most of us associate pollen with the unwelcome start of allergy season. Pollen is the male sex cells of a flowering plant, which is necessary to fertilize it so it can bear fruit and reproduce. If you are allergic to pollen, you are familiar with the typical symptoms, including headaches, sinus stuffiness, fatigue, and general aches and pains.

Honey bees are hairy creatures that naturally attract pollen while gathering nectar for honey making. They use their feet to comb the tiny pollen granules off their hairy bodies and mix it with nectar and their own enzymes to form it into tiny balls now called bee pollen. Bees will carry the bee pollen balls back to the hive on their hind legs in their pollen baskets. Beekeepers can collect pollen by placing a piece of equipment at the entrance of the hive called a pollen trap. As the bees return back to the hive with pollen in their pollen baskets, they are encouraged to crawl through a narrow hole in the pollen trap, which separates the pollen from their legs. Pollen comes in a rainbow of colors, like honey, depending upon the type of flower it was gathered from. The granules are commonly sold in jars in health-food shops or farmers’ markets.