Honey For Dummies. Howland Blackiston
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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.
Bee Venom
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.
ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK
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.
Bee Pollen
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.
Bee pollen is said to be nature’s most complete food, containing every nutrient needed to sustain human life. It is a complete source of protein that contains all the basic elements in the human body, including 22 amino acids, 18 vitamins, 25 minerals, 59 trace elements, 11 enzymes or co-enzymes, fatty acids, and carbohydrates. Chock-full of B-complex vitamins and C, D and E, many people consume bee pollen orally for nutrition value similar to a daily vitamin.
Athletes swear that bee pollen increases energy and endurance during competitions. However, the most common reason people consume bee pollen is to build up a natural immunity, especially to seasonal pollen allergies. After all, allergy shots are injections of pollen and other allergens to build your body’s own natural immunity to what you are allergic to, so why not eat your medicine? Sprinkle some bee pollen on salads, or mix it into power smoothies, yogurt, or oatmeal. Since bee pollen is considered a raw superfood, it should be kept refrigerated and consumed within a few months of harvest.
Royal Jelly
Probably the most mysterious substance produced by honey bees is a milky white liquid called royal jelly. You may have seen royal jelly as an ingredient in power drinks, facial creams, or even supplements at your natural food shop and had no idea what it was. Secreted by the hypopharynx glands of young nurse bees to feed young growing larvae inside their cells, royal jelly is best known as the magical food of the queen. It is what gives her fertility and the supernatural ability to lay up to 2,000 eggs a day. It is also why she lives three to five years longer than any other bees, essentially increasing her longevity.
To gather one ounce of royal jelly, you would have to visit 120 queen cells, and in fact it is not always present in every hive unless the colony is actively rearing a new queen. For this reason royal jelly is extremely rare, labor intensive to harvest, and costly.
Royal jelly is another superfood chock-full of amino acids; vitamins A, C, D, E, and B-complex; and trace minerals, as well as calcium, copper, iron, potassium, phosphorus, silicon, and sulfur, essential fatty acids, sugars, sterols, and acetylcholine, a neuronal transmitter. These elements are necessary for human survival and maintaining a healthy the immune system.
Royal jelly also contains collagen that benefits the skin, hair, and nails, making it a popular ingredient in personal care products. A potent antimicrobial protein called royalisin has also been found in royal jelly. In addition, royal jelly has been touted to aid in mood disorders and insomnia, repair nerve cells, strengthen liver function, and aid in digestive disorders. Considering all the benefits that royal jelly offers, I can tell you from experience that royal jelly is extremely sour and tastes like a seriously stinky cheese, but many things that are good