You know, I wait a long time in between bee questions…
Anyway, I used to keep bees, and for a while I subscribed to apiary magazines, and this was a topic that would come up quite often. In fact, it is one of the big three. The other two are about the mystic healing powers of bee-collected pollen, and the rejuvenating and healing powers of royal jelly.
The short answer is that if you read up on bees, buy a hive and equipment, keep the bees, raise honey, etc. the satisfaction all this gives you might make you feel better than if you weren’t doing anything constructive. In other words, keeping bees is a fun and enjoyable pastime that might add to your general quality of life, but beyond that is wishful thinking.
This concurs with my own experience. I learned beekeeping from a nice old man in Shippensburg, PA who was slowing down and getting out of it because… you guessed it, his arthritis was getting to be too much for him. This guy had hundreds of hives and being a tough and cantankerous country sort he shunned protective gear. He’d just open up the hive, and do what he wanted to do. Suffice it to say that he was getting stung multiple times a day, and it didn’t help his arthritis.
At all.
Now do be aware that getting stung by a bee is an acute and painful experience. It will temporarily cure the symptoms of depression, MS, or just about anything else that ails you.
The way this works is known as the “hammer principle.”
The hammer principle states that if you walk up to a depressed person and smash their toe smartly with a hammer, they will be miraculously cured of depression for the time period that they are screaming in pain and hopping up and down in agony. In some cases the cure may lost long enough for the formerly depressed person to chase you down and beat you unconscious. Alas though, once this temporary effect wears off what you have is a depressed person with a stubbed toe.
The cure works for MS, arthritis, headaches, general malaise, achiness, and even the common cold!
Unfortunately the acute pain phase of a bee sting lasts about a minute and once it’s over you are left with MS, arthritis, a headache, general malaise, achiness, or the cold that you had before you were stung. Now you also have a small puncture that will turn into a little interesting black hole that will stay inflamed for a day, and itch for a week.
This about says it for the demonstrated curative effects of a bee sting.
On a serious note of caution is the nature of bee sting allergies. If you have been stung before and are not allergic, that does not mean you will not have a fatal allergic reaction the next time you are stung. Bee sting allergies can be acquired. A beekeeper who is getting stung from time to time is mindful of the symptoms of an acquired allergy. Having a large number of past recent bee stings to compare to you have a pretty good idea of how you react. Any change from this is a very bad sign.
Chances are, since you are not a beekeeper you do not have a lot of recent experience with bee stings and do not know exactly what your tolerance and average reaction is. In fact, you are looking for a change, a reaction. You may have issues if you are depressed, have MS, or an other ailment that may mask an allergic reaction, or you may fail to recognize it, or this reaction may be interpreted by you as a sign that the therapy is working. The nature of these allergies is that the window (in terms of number of stings,) if any, between a normal reaction and a severe and potentially fatal allergic reaction, is tiny.
So, for example, you may have arthritis. You get stung in the hand as deliberate bee sting therapy. You get a mild allergic reaction in your arm. This reaction has a side effect of temporarily ameliorating the severity of the arthritis pain in that limb.
“A-ha!” you say. “It’s working!” the next day you get stung again. The way these things work is you now have a much more severe reaction and you may go to the hospital, you may die, or you may have to carry an injector with yo the rest of your life.
Even long-term beekeepers may develop an allergy after twenty years. There’s really no telling, though the conventional wisdom suggests that if you have other ailments or allergies that can compromise your system you may be more vulnerable.
My best advice is don’t get stung deliberately.
If you must try it be sure an familiarize yourself with the signs of an allergic reaction and if you begin to show them, get to a hospital, even if it doesn’t seem to be severe. It often doesn’t at first, but once your throat closes up you have problems.
