Can bee stings cure inflammation?
Lithuanians have some thoughts. Science is still trying to figure apitherapy out.
What’s “apitherapy?”
An apitherapy practitioner might hold a little honey bee in tweezers and let it sting you, squirting its tiny dose of bee venom right into your body. Some claim the venom helps with arthritis, bursitis, even MS (although the Multiple Sclerosis Trust in the UK says "There is little scientific evidence to support bee venom therapy in MS.")
Apitherapy involves using not just bee stings but bee-related products for therapeutic or beauty treatments.
What’s the Lithuanian connection?
This headline, "Are Lithuanians obsessed with bees?" sent yours truly down a rabbit hole with one thousand questions (why bees? why Lithuanians?) and I have emerged, dear reader, to tell you what I've found. First, bees have a special place in Lithuanian culture. For the BBC, Will Mawhood writes:
"Lithuanians don’t speak about bees grouping together in a colony like English-speakers do. Instead, the word for a human family (šeimas) is used. In the Lithuanian language, there are separate words for death depending on whether you’re talking about people or animals, but for bees – and only for bees – the former is used. And if you want to show a new-found Lithuanian pal what a good friend they are, you might please them by calling them bičiulis, a word roughly equivalent to ‘mate’, which has its root in bitė – bee. In Lithuania, it seems, a bee is like a good friend and a good friend is like a bee."
Mawhood thought perhaps there was some pagan bee worship going back in the day, but an anthropologist set him straight:
"In Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, I spoke to Dalia Senvaitytė, a professor of cultural anthropology at Vytautas Magnus University. She was skeptical about my bee-worshipping theory, telling me that there may have been a bee goddess by the name of Austėja, but she’s attested in just one source: a 16th-century book on traditional Lithuanian beliefs written by a Polish historian.
"It’s more likely, she said, that these bee-related terms reflect the significance of bees in medieval Lithuania. Beekeeping, she explained “was regulated by community rules, as well as in special formal regulations”. Honey and beeswax were abundant and among the main exports, I learned, which is why its production was strictly controlled."
Historical medicinal uses for bees
Researchers in Lithuania recently went through the earliest documented uses of bee therapy in the country and found, in the journal Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, that:
"Venom from a bee was used to treat viper bites [Lithuania has vipers?], and one treatment for epilepsy apparently recommended drinking water with boiled dead bees. But only, of course, if the bees had died from natural causes [so humane]."
The researchers set out to systemize all this archival material about the use of bee therapies in Lithuania and there was a ton:
"Until the 18th century, [the] bee was described as [a] diuretic and hair loss inhibitive remedy in pharmaceutical literature. It was used in homeopathy for the treatment of allergy and swellings...For epilepsy healing, the drinking [of] the water with boiled dead bees (dead after the winter time) were used. Numerous practices used [the] whole bee for medicinal purposes: bee glue [propolis] was used to put on ulcers and boils…[and] to put on purulent gatherings for faster removing of purulence."
Is there anything to bee venom treatment?
In Clinical Effectiveness and Adverse Events of Bee Venom Therapy: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials, researchers writing in the journal Toxins (Basel) found that, yes, there's something to it, with caveats.
"Despite causing mild skin reactions such as pruritus, rash, and swelling, bee venom showed therapeutic effectiveness in treating inflammatory arthritis and musculoskeletal diseases. This study suggests that large-scale clinical trials on bee venom need to be conducted and that a reporting system for AEs [adverse events] needs to be developed to enhance the validity of bee venom treatment."
I am not running out to get bee stings for my lower back pain. And we should remember that some people are deathly allergic to bee stings. But there’s tons of research going on about this right now, especially, I think, since so many of our ailments these days stem from inflammation.
It’s not just about the venom. Bees are pretty great for other things.
Let’s remember bees provide a plethora of healing products. Bring on the apitherapy.
When our dog Buttercup was bitten by a brown recluse spider, the vet had us smother the open wound with medicinal honey, a well-known antibacterial. She made a full recovery.
Propolis, says WebMD, is "a resin-like material made by bees from the buds of poplar and cone-bearing trees. Bees use it to build hives and it may contain beehive byproducts. Propolis seems to help fight bacteria, viruses, and fungi. It might also have anti-inflammatory effects and help skin heal…Propolis is rarely available in its pure form. It's usually obtained from beehives." In fact, a quick search of PubMed shows more than 2,000 studies from this year about propolis properties.
Bee pollen has been used for thousands of years, particularly for nutrition. In this article from the journal Nutrients, researchers find "Long-term bee pollen consumption can improve health, foster blood circulation, delay aging, enhance immunity and increase physical and mental activities." They note that "The ancient Egyptians portray pollen as “a life-giving dust." Sign me up.
Royal jelly is a milky substance secreted by worker bees to help nourish the queen. In fact, it may be pretty beneficial for humans as well, according to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. A few studies indicate its ability to help improve cholesterol, diabetes, and menopause symptoms.
Pollination isn't exactly used for healing, but it certainly helps humans stay alive by making the crops we depend on possible, so I'm throwing it in here for good measure.
Thank you, bees. And sorry about the tweezers.