Are bee stings really therapeutic?

Over the years, I have read about and witnessed some of the weirdest forms of medical practices targeted at treating some specific or even general illnesses. I once witnessed a man suffering from back pains being given a locally prepared soap. To do what exactly? Right in my presence, he was asked to use the soap to wash his two hands and allow the water to dry off his hands as a panacea to his predicament. Unbelievable, I know, but it happened. Did the hand washing work? Well, I did not see the man the following day to ask. :)

It is a usual practice for some of the orchestrators of these weird medical practices to set up demonstration rendevous in public places, especially local markets. Hence, in most cases, they are found surrounded by a handful of people who are either ignorant or just having a good laugh at the folly of the weird medicine merchants. Ordinarily, I do not take a second glance at such gatherings knowing that they lie 99.9% percent of the time. However, something made me to break my own record on this fateful day.

Having walked almost the entire length and breadth of one of the popular markets within my neighbourhood looking for a particular item, I was about heading home as a clear sign of frustration when I saw this particular group of weird medicine protagonists. A second look revealed that virtually every member of the group were groaning in obvious pain. One particular man that seemed to be the leader of the group was holding a plastic bucket with a closing lid. Further enquiries indicated that the man has been administering 'bee stings' to the members of the group. There were claims among the people that the bee sting works against a lot of human illnesses such as arthritis, backpains, fever and so on.

^{By Alvesgaspar - CC BY-SA 3.0, Link}

The whole scenario looked funny to me. Partly because I could not imagine being so patient and enduring as to allow myself to be stung by bees; I have been mistakenly stung by a bee before during one of the numerous forest trips I have participated in, and the accompanying pain was quite unbearable. Also, I found it difficult that people could be so gullible as to believe that a sting from bees could heal illnesses. Perhaps I was wrong and they were right.

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The Bees

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If you happen to be a lover of rock music like I use to be (I hardly listen to music anymore), the first thing that would come to mind upon seeing 'The Bees' is the famous English band from Ventnor and Isle of Wight. No, I was not referring to a musical band.

A bee is a stinging winged insect which collects nectar and pollen, produces wax and honey, and lives in large communities. ^source

According to the science of classification, the bees belong to the order Hymenoptera, class Insecta in the phylum Arthropoda of the animal kingdom. About twenty thousand species of bees are known to exist in nature with all being distributed within seven bees family. Similar to what is obtainable in some insects, the bee's mouth is adapted for piercing and sucking. They feed on flower nectars and during this process, their hairy bodies get stuck with pollen grains from the anther and get transferred to the stigma of the flower in what is usually termed an insect pollination process. Hence, they play an important ecological process of pollination in nature.

The bee's stingers developed as a form of evolutionary advancement from the ovipositor, an organ found in their distant ancestors used for piercing and laying eggs into a plant or an animal host. As a result, only female bees have the capacity to sting since the male ones did not have ovipositors to start with. Even as such, not all female bees sting, only about seventy-five percent of the female bees are known to have the capacity to sting while some species totally lack the ability and are generally referred to as stingless bees.

The bees' stingers can be barbed as we have it in some species (mostly honeybees) or without barb as present in some. The presence of barbs in bees' stinger in some cases can lead to such bees losing their lives after stinging simply because a certain portion of the bees' internal organs are pulled-out from its abdomen as it struggles to release itself from the stung victim. However, the scenario is different for stingers without barbs as they do not stick to the victims after being stung.

^{CC BY-SA 3.0, Link}

Bee stingers are primarily for defensive purpose. Hence, they will only sting when they feel threatened and produce pheromone which is chemical used to call for reinforcement from nearby bees. Much of the pain felt during a bee sting is not just due to the stinger but the venom that is attached to it. The venoms are usually from poison gland and Dufour's gland, both being an exocrine gland of the insect's abdominal origin. A typical venom is odorless, slightly acidic and made up largely of water, constituting about 88% of the total venom. In addition to water, other constituents include;

• An allergeen known as melittin, a peptide that constitutes more than 50% of the weight of the venom when the large water portion has been removed. The chemical stimulates the pain receptors in the body and instigates the production of histamine on the stung site, causing swellings and tendering of the skin in the process. The substance also has cytotoxic capacity, causing the destruction of red blood cells by breaking their membranes and eventual expansion of blood vessels. The expansion of blood vessesels has been the main cause of reduced blood pressure which has been witnessed in some victims of bee's stings.

^{By Waugsberg - CC BY-SA 3.0, Link}

• Working closely with melittin is phospholipase A2. The substance constitutes about 12% of the bee's venom, it is a proteinous enzyme that induces swellings and pains via the destruction of cell membranes in stung sites.

• Other chemical ingredients of the bee's venom include histamine which induces the small blood capillaries to leak fluids and causes itching in the stung victims, apamin that works by destroying nerve tissues and hyaluronidase that works by spreading the effects into other tissues.

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Bee venom therapeutic?

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Seeing all these effects associated with the stinger and the venoms of bees, one begins to wonder where the myth that bee stings are therapeutic stemed from. Perhaps it stemed from the branch of alternate medicine that specializes in the utilization of bee products in the treatment of several ailments.

Several researches have been done about the therapeutic effects of bee venom but the outcomes are largely inconclusive. The proponents of bee sting therapy mainly rely on personal testimonies although few studies conducted in the laboratory suggested that the bee venom might have some therapeutic effects against certain diseases, especially arthritis. It has long been used in regions of the world such as Korea and Gaza as an analgesic, although one begins to wonder how a venom that inflicts pains can also have the capacity to relieve pains.

The venom in bee stings have been shown to be effective against the progress of arthritis related diseases in rats. It has been revealed that the venom actually worked by inhibiting the secretion of pain and inflammation-inducing compound known as interleukin-1. Melittin which is a significant component of the bee's venom as stated earlier has also been proven to have an anti-inflammatory ability in one of the researches conducted by some South Korean scientists.

On the contrary, a lot of folks have shown to be allergic to bee venoms and administration of bee stings could induce severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis. The venom in a single bee sting might not be enough to induce the allergy, however bee sting therapies always involve stings by multiple bees, increasing the chances of severe allergy in pre-disposed folks.

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Conclusion

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The bee venom contains a myriad of substances that can induce pains as well as serious allergic reactions in human. Even though there have been claims that the bee venom has therapeutic effects against certain diseases like in this video, scientific investigations on the subject remains inconclusive.

Research into the anti-inflamatory and analgesic effects of bee venoms has taken a hit due to breakthroughs in the development of conventional analgesic and anti-inflamatory drugs. Who knows, perhaps one day all of us will have to take queue while bee sting is being administered to us for the treatment of various ailments.

Before calling it a day on today's article, it is pertinent to let my readers know that the melittin substance found in bee venom is been targeted as a potential solution against the Human Immuno Virus (HIV). This is so because the substance has been found to have the capacity to anihilate the virus by creating holes in the coating or its protective shell.

What do you think?

Thank you for reading.

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References

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explorecuriocity

onlinelibrary

wikipedia

buzzaboutbees

healthday

honeybeesuite

beeculture

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