What’s in a sting?

I was all enthusiastic about the ‘World Bee Day’ — making videos, interviewing beekeepers and writing about it.

The star of our video was a little bee enjoying the nectar of little white flowers of a basil plant at home. Was under the impression it must have come km away looking for flowers of its choice. Our guest on the Bee Day, Mohammed al Badi, a beekeeper, had explained how bees would even travel 8 km even looking for food.

And then on a sunny day, running through the garden to avoid the blazing sun resulted in a little brownish thing which was flying around getting attached to my index finger. As I shook the finger frantically to detach myself from the flying insect there was a shooting pain. And at last I was free from the one with the wings only to see the stinger that was left behind was still wiggling. The sight would make anyone faint, but the stinger was actually doing its part by squeezing in more of the venom into the bloodstream.

In other words the pain continued and in panic turmeric powder was splashed, and after a second thought washed it off with water until finally instinct suggested the stinger had to be pulled out — all this amidst excruciating pain and tears and yelling. That makes one wonder why crying out loud makes one feel better?

Now at these moments of struggle asking Google what to do, did not pop in the mind. So I decided to pull the stinger out with tweezers and the burning pain continued until my friend suggested applying calamine lotion and that was it — the coolness took away the stinging pain and the tears dried up. The lotion soothed and the bump turned itching and soon it was all getting to be normal until we discovered the hive. “Your own beehive!” said the beekeeper friend.

The little bee in the video is a resident of the garden and blazing sun had dried up a leaf exposing the hive. It was the running that had made the bee panic and clashed with the runner all in defence of saving her dive. Yes, it is a ‘she’ because the original use of the stinger is to lay eggs.

Now when I told my beekeeper interviewee about the incident, the first thing they said was, “Oh good for you!” And to the question, ‘Why?’ he replied, “Bee venom is good for people because it has health benefits as it has shown to have anti-inflammatory properties and is considered good for rheumatoid arthritis and even chronic pain. They also say it is good for skin’’, Mohammed al Badi, a professional beekeeper explained.

With curiosity triggered off it was time to delve into bee venom reading. According to experts bee venom contains several active molecules such as peptides and enzymes, “That have advantageous potential in treating inflammation and central nervous system disease, Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.” (www.ncbi.nim.nij.gov).

In fact this therapy is called Apitherapy, classified as an alternate therapy, it uses honey bee products but its most important treatment is with the bee venom itself.

And don’t you want to know how it is done?

The bee venom is given through an injection or even better — letting the bee sting the person. But this is not new knowledge as experts say the bee venom therapy (BVT) has been used in alternative medicine for more than 5,000 years. Apparently it is believed that beekeepers tend to suffer from rheumatism and joint pain.

For a while the impression was that it could have been a wasp that had stung but the discovery of the hive proved it was a honey bee. Now the hive is much appreciated by the interviewees and they identified them as the wild bees of Oman. The wild bees are hard to maintain in a farm because they like to fly away and move on to different locations.

For now as long as they stay on the spot, there is not going to be any running around. Shall tip toe around and follow the advice from my friend, “They can sense when you are nervous. When you are calm the bees are at ease.”

That is a bit of wisdom for life too. When we are agitated there are so many things in and around us that go out of balance. As for the bees of the world that need all the care now as the ecosystem is being damaged, they are an amazing creation with goodness from the honey they make to the venom they produce.

The only sad part is when they leave the stinger behind they die thereafter.