Apitherapy: How the Honeybee Heals - Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - page 100

plainly became an obsession, and I surrendered to it. The Chinese taught me many
things, especially about natural, honey-based remedies.
A PITHERAPY
Apis means bee in Latin, and apitherapy is the ancient practice of using bee venom
and other products of the honeybees, including honey, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis,
along with essential oils, to treat a variety of conditions and to maintain health and har-
monywithin the body.Myenthusiasm forhoneyandits supernatural healing properties
led me to the American Apitherapy Society (AAS), a nonprofit membership corpora-
tion that promotes and educates people about the use of honeybee products to maintain
and improve health. I found this ancient wisdom riveting, so I signed up and attended
one of the society's yearly conferences. Theo Cherbuliez, a native of Switzerland and a
psychiatrist and physician who served as president of the AAS for more than a decade,
led the conference.
The conference is a series of workshops and training called the Charles Mraz Api-
therapy Course (CMAC). Charles Mraz was a beekeeper and author who founded the
AAS in the 1930s and served as its executive director. During his lifetime, he used bee
stings to treat people with arthritis pain, multiple sclerosis, and other autoimmune dis-
eases. His topic Health and the Honeybee was published in 1995 and includes his per-
sonal journey as a pioneering healer along with case studies. Mraz was once voted one
of the five most distinguished beekeepers in the United States, and he traveled around
the world, educating people about the amazing honeybee.
Over the course of the three-day conference, I listened to speakers who had come
fromallovertheglobetooffertheirinsightsonapitherapy.Theywerebeekeepers,doc-
tors, educators, practicing apitherapists, acupuncturists, as well as people recovering
from illnesses from which only the honeybee and her products offered relief. All of
these interesting and knowledgeable people had gathered to talk about honeybees and
their products for healing. There was a vast amount of information to absorb.
BEE VENOM THERAPY
Bee venom therapy has been used throughout history and has helped cure many ail-
ments. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, used honeybees and their venom to treat
patients more than two thousand years ago. The use of live bees to literally sting
certain pressure points, similar to the technique of acupuncture, has its roots in ancient
Chinese medicine. Acupuncture balances theflowofenergyandpromotesnatural heal-
ing through the insertion of extremely fine needles into the body at precise points. The