Bee Venom Therapy

Korean medicine literature

Bee venom papers have appeared in Korean medicine journals since 1976, according to a bibliometric review by Han and colleagues. The authors counted 205 clinical and 138 experimental articles from a Korean research database and cite the Mawangdui texts as the first documented record of bee venom therapy in Oriental medicine, although they give no date for those texts. They describe bee venom therapy as a method grounded in Korean traditional medicine theory. The review counts papers by year, method and subject and does not appraise study quality or treatment effects.

A review of Korean clinical practice guidelines states that bee venom has been used in traditional medicine for centuries, but it does not give dated accounts of its use in Korea. The guidelines it reviewed date from 2019 to 2024, which describes the current clinical literature rather than the historical record.

References to China and Korea

Jang and Kim's 2020 systematic review describes bee venom as used in many countries, including China, Korea and Germany. Its historical background cites a Korean review and a 2001 Korean case report rather than dated primary texts. No verified source documenting Chinese historical use with dates or named texts was opened for this page, so Chinese origins are not described beyond this general statement.

Apitherapy as a modern label

A 2010 German medical-history article by Teichfischer examines the concept and history of apitherapy, which the author describes as having been in a process of institutionalization for about four decades. Its English abstract characterizes bee venom therapy as the root of this stream within natural medicine. Only the abstract was read for this page, so the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century material in the full article is not summarized here.

The term apitherapy therefore groups several bee products under one heading, and that grouping is recent relative to the older medical writing. The sources reviewed do not describe one unbroken tradition linking older texts to present-day live bee acupuncture or venom injection.

Apitherapy and bee venom

Vazquez-Revuelta and Madrigal-Burgaleta define apitherapy as the use of substances from honeybees, such as honey, propolis, royal jelly or venom, to relieve various medical conditions. Bee venom therapy is therefore a subset of apitherapy, and findings for honey, propolis or royal jelly do not transfer to it.

Bee venom is also called apitoxin. Sriwidodo and colleagues describe its best-known active components as melittin and a phospholipase A2 enzyme, and note that the same molecules can provoke pain, swelling and hypersensitivity. Their 2025 review is a laboratory and preclinical summary, so its mechanistic descriptions do not show what a given treatment delivers in a person.

Sting, injection and acupuncture terms

Live bee acupuncture uses a stinging bee applied directly to chosen sites, and Vazquez-Revuelta and Madrigal-Burgaleta note that it is often performed in private health care centers or by nonmedical practitioners. Bee venom acupuncture instead injects venom at acupuncture points. Jang and Kim excluded live bee stings from their review, so the randomized trials they summarized concern venom injection.

Korean guidelines and trial protocols also use the term bee venom pharmacopuncture, which refers to the injection of a substance at acupoints. A 2022 systematic review protocol for rheumatoid arthritis uses this label. Readers should not treat the different labels as separate, better-established treatments.

Venom immunotherapy as a separate treatment

Venom immunotherapy is a desensitization treatment given to people with a known allergy to insect venom. It has a different purpose, setting and evidence base from bee venom therapy. Park and colleagues' 2015 meta-analysis included audits of venom immunotherapy in its harms review, and the figures for that treatment are not evidence about bee venom acupuncture.

Settings and practitioners

Bee venom therapy is delivered in several different settings. Live bee acupuncture is described as often given in private health care centers or by nonmedical practitioners. Most of the randomized trials reviewed by Jang and Kim were conducted in South Korea, and Korean clinical practice guidelines cover bee venom acupuncture for musculoskeletal, neurological and other conditions.

Practitioner qualifications are not uniformly described in the sources. Park and colleagues cite one death after bee sting acupuncture given by an unqualified practitioner described as an apitherapist. No statutory regulation or training standard for bee venom practitioners was verified for this page, and requirements differ by country.

What participants may experience

Jang and Kim describe the reactions reported in trials as mostly minor and transient skin reactions, such as itching, rash and swelling. Park and Shin's review of guidelines lists local reactions such as itching, redness, swelling and pain, and less often systemic symptoms such as headache, dizziness and nausea. Severe allergic reactions are reported less often, and they are the main reason for the safety concerns covered later on this page.

Conditions named in trials and guidelines

Jang and Kim list the topics of bee venom trials: Parkinson's disease, frozen shoulder, knee osteoarthritis, low back pain, jaw disorders, muscle soreness, pelvic inflammatory disease and polycystic ovary syndrome. They report that practitioners use bee venom for its proposed anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. These are reasons for study and practice, not established effects in those conditions.

Korean clinical practice guidelines reviewed by Park and Shin include recommendations for bee venom acupuncture for low back pain, knee osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke, facial palsy and gout, among others. Most of these recommendations are graded B or C and rest on evidence rated moderate or low certainty. A guideline recommendation reflects a panel's judgment of the evidence and does not establish effectiveness for a particular person.

Laboratory claims and multiple sclerosis

Laboratory and animal studies describe anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and antioxidant effects of bee venom and its peptides. Sriwidodo and colleagues summarize many of these studies and state that early clinical evidence further suggests potential benefit in rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Laboratory activity does not show a clinical benefit in people, and the authors call for standardized preparations and better evaluation of safety.

Knee osteoarthritis

Conrad and colleagues reported a randomized, double-blind trial of 538 people with knee osteoarthritis of Kellgren and Lawrence grade 1 to 3 and knee pain. Participants were randomized 1:2 to a control injection described as histamine or to a purified honey bee venom product. The venom group had lower WOMAC pain scores after 12 weeks, with a mean difference of 1.1 units (95% CI 0.3 to 2.0), and better WOMAC physical function, with a mean difference of 3.1 units (95% CI 0.3 to 5.9). The authors report that improvements were sustained 4 weeks after treatment.

This is the largest trial in the sources opened for this page, but it studies one condition with a short follow-up, and several authors are listed with a Korean company affiliation. Only the PubMed abstract was read, so its methods and conflict-of-interest statement could not be checked.

Other musculoskeletal and neurological trials

Jang and Kim identified 12 randomized trials of bee venom therapy with 20 to 367 participants, excluding live bee stings. Eight of the trials were conducted in South Korea. Two of three Parkinson's disease trials reported better motor scores, while the third found no significant effect. Trials of frozen shoulder, knee osteoarthritis and low back pain reported some pain or function gains, but the low back pain trials did not show a quality-of-life improvement.

The authors judged the trials few and small, mostly from one country, and called for larger trials. Park and Shin's guideline review similarly rates none of its recommendations high certainty, with downgrading mostly for imprecision and risk of bias.

Rheumatoid arthritis

Sung and colleagues published a protocol in 2022 for a systematic review of randomized trials of bee venom pharmacopuncture in rheumatoid arthritis. The protocol notes that no well-organized, recent systematic review existed at that time. In the searches run for this page, the protocol was the only item found, and no results paper was opened.

The guideline listing for rheumatoid arthritis, noted in the Claimed Uses section, is not trial evidence, and no trial results for the condition were opened for this page, so the question of effect remains open.

Multiple sclerosis

Most of the research on bee venom and multiple sclerosis is in animals. Jelodar and colleagues induced experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a mouse model of multiple sclerosis, in 12 female mice and treated them with Iranian honey bee venom after symptoms appeared. Treated mice had higher interleukin-27 levels than controls and fewer inflammatory cells in the brain, and the authors suggest venom may be a candidate for inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis. A mouse model does not show whether a treatment affects the disease in people.

Searches of PubMed for bee venom together with multiple sclerosis returned mainly preclinical and mechanistic papers. No randomized trial or systematic review of bee venom in people with multiple sclerosis was opened and verified for this page, so the effect in people remains an open question.

Anaphylaxis and a reported death after a live sting

Vazquez-Revuelta and Madrigal-Burgaleta describe a 55-year-old woman in Spain who had attended sessions every four weeks for two years with good tolerance. During one session, immediately after a sting, she developed wheezing, breathlessness and loss of consciousness. No adrenaline was available at the clinic, and the ambulance took 30 minutes. Her systolic pressure had fallen to 42 mmHg on arrival, and she died some weeks later of multiorgan failure. The authors describe it as the first reported death of this kind in a sensitized patient who had previously tolerated stings.

The authors state that previous tolerance does not prevent a hypersensitivity reaction and that repeated exposure favors sensitization. They conclude that the practice is unsafe and unadvisable. The report concerns a live bee sting rather than venom injection, and it describes a single case.

Park and colleagues' 2015 review of 145 studies also recorded a death after bee sting acupuncture given by an unqualified practitioner, in a 65-year-old woman with knee pain who developed anaphylaxis.

Adverse events in randomized trials

Park and colleagues' pooled trials, 20 randomized trials with 397 participants and 148 adverse events, found that, in four pooled trials, bee venom acupuncture carried a relative risk of adverse events of 3.61 (95% CI 2.10 to 6.20) compared with saline injection. The authors caution that poor reporting may over- or underestimate this, and that 52.14% of CONSORT adverse-event items were not met.

Jang and Kim found that six of the 12 trials reported adverse events, mostly minor skin reactions, and warned that severe reactions such as anaphylaxis may be missed in small trials.

Allergy screening and interactions

Most Korean guidelines reviewed by Park and Shin recommend skin testing for hypersensitivity before bee venom acupuncture, yet a prior meta-analysis cited there found pre-treatment allergy testing documented in only 10% of cases.

Kurek-Górecka and colleagues state that hypersensitivity should be assessed before treatment and that systemic reactions are more likely with asthma, allergic rhinitis or a family history of sting allergy. They also suggest that ACE inhibitors and beta blockers may increase the risk of large reactions, a claim the other sources opened do not confirm.

Rocha Filho and colleagues list fatalities and anaphylaxis after bee venom use among reported cases, and find allergic responses to be the most common adverse event across apitherapy products.

Suitability and care boundaries

Vazquez-Revuelta and Madrigal-Burgaleta call for screening for sensitization, full information, and rapid access to adrenaline and intensive care. Bee venom therapy should not delay or replace assessment and treatment of musculoskeletal, neurological or other conditions.

Anyone with a history of bee sting allergy, wheezing or anaphylaxis should raise this with a clinician before any sting or venom injection. None of the sources opened for this page reports on use in pregnancy, in children or on long-term safety, so these questions remain open.