Apitherapy

Charles Mraz, beekeeper and author of Health and the Honeybee, is considered the herald of apitherapy and bee venom therapy. He started the American Apitherapy Society, whose conferences Joy regularly attends. The American Apitherapy Society’s website is a wealth of infor- mation from scientific journals and medical journals from around the world. Through attending their conferences and workshops, Joy gained the confidence to open a practice of her own. In 2013, she started giving consultations and administering apitherapy, specifically bee venom therapy. Our family practice is called Honeybee Healing Arts, and our focus is on holistic health of the mind, body, and spirit using bee products as medicine and teaching people about keeping their own bees.

Our practice follows a patient-led process wherein Joy and her client go over a general intake history and perform a test sting during the first appointment. As time goes on, and if the patient so desires, they increase the duration and number of stings. We have a “spirit bowl” (a little bowl with honey placed within) at Diggin’ Livin’ where the honey bees come to become medicine bees. From there, we put them in a quart-sized glass jar with a sprouting screen for a lid, giving them a little honey and a dash of water on top of the screen. We use these bees to administer pure venom to alleviate pain and aid in the healing of people’s conditions. Eventually, we encourage apitherapy clients to learn to sting themselves. We teach our clients by first having them practice stinging us until they gain confidence and prowess.

We are passionate about teaching people about the availability and accessibility of the various medicines of the beehive, specifically bee venom. Many folks experience apitherapy for the first time after exhausting themselves with traditional medicines that haven’t worked and have depleted their wallet. As we personally strive to be more self-reliant as a family, we seek to share what we learn with our greater community. We hope that all apitherapy students and clients will someday learn the craft and art of beekeeping so that they can have their medicine available at their back door. In keeping bees, caring for them, and consuming their products, we feel a direct correlation to maintaining our good health and that of the planet.

Honey bee venom is best known for its use in combating arthritis and alleviating joint pain and inflammation. As of late it has been getting more attention for its potential in treating conditions such as Lyme disease, breast cancer, and multiple sclerosis. Interestingly, it has been hypothesized that the honey bee’s stinger was the original acupuncture instrument. However the stinger’s mechanism of administration is much more complex than a needle.

The stinger is composed of three parts: a detachable muscle, a shaft with tetrahedron-shaped barbs that twist clockwise in response to muscle convulsions, and a venom sac that is compressed by muscle contractions. When a honey bee stings a mammal and the stinger is detached from her body, the muscle continues to pump the toxin while the barbs are forced deeper into skin, making for an ideal injection. The main pharmacological component of bee venom is melittin, constituting approximately 50 percent of its dry matter. Many studies have reported that melittin is a very active peptide, exhibiting antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, antitumoral, and antiparasitic activities.

Bee venom therapy works by catalyzing the body’s natural healing processes. The body responds to the sting with swelling and vasodilation, which brings large amounts of blood to the area. This immune response will include white blood cells known as macrophages, which scour and consume materials seen as foreign to the body. Furthermore the body’s adrenal glands are stimulated by the venom to produce cortisol, the body’s endogenous version of the steroid cortisone, which is used to treat arthritis and other inflammatory conditions.