Alternative, complementary and holistic health care

I have read with interest the articles posted here.  I have been a beekeeper for 6 years and
in that time have studied the use of bee products for health – they include honey, pollen,
wax , propolis, royal jelly, bee bread and venom.  Even the larvae are being used in
cosmetics.
     Bee venom therapy is of special interest to me.  In Europe it has been used for  years to
treat all types of arthritis and in North America research is being done on its ability to
relieve the symptoms of MS.
     Along the way I have come across an excellent source of venom products and
information.  It is Apitronic Services.  The owner and venom collector is Michael Simics.  
He has over 10,000 pages of literature on the use of hive products for health and of that,
more than 5000 on bee venom alone.
     In April 1995 he was a guest speaker at the American Apitherapy Society Convention
in Toronto.  I have a copy of his presentation and with his permission post it here for your
interest.  Michael Can be reached at #204- 1331 15th Ave. S.W., Calgary Alberta.
Canada.Ph\fax (403)  541-1877.  I will also forward any mail I get on the net to him.  My
address is  d…@wimsey.com.

Bee Venom Collection – Past, Present and Future
by Mihaly Simics
Apitronic Services,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Presented at the Toronto American Apitherapy Society Convention April, 1995

  Bee venom has been used since ancient times for medicinal purposes.  Healers applied
direct bee stings or dried and crushed bees mixed with honey to the affected areas.  This
method did not change considerably until the 1930s when the first bee venom injections
and creams were introduced to the market in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.  During
this time, in Illertissen, Germany, venom collection was conducted by 80 women who sat
beside the hives dressed in protective clothing and caught bees with a pair of tweezers.1  
The bees were forced to sting an absorbent paper and later the venom was separated in a
laboratory.
  This method was not productive enough, so in 1937 at the Henrich Mach Company, in
Illertissen, a scientist by the name of Forster and his colleagues developed a mechanical
device to extract venom.2  This device had two rotating cylinders with a 5 mm distance
between them which the bees passed between. The rotation and pressure encouraged the
bees to sting an absorbent paper on the surface of the cylinder.  Similar to the previous
method, the venom was separated from the absorbent paper.
  The Second World War slowed down further research of bee venom.  After the war the
research continued and new methods and technologies were developed.
  In 1952, in Czechoslovakia, an inventor named Orovec developed a mechanical device
similar to Forster’s.3  During the summer of 1953 this device was tested by two
researchers, Markovic and Molnar, but it was rejected because it could not produce an
acceptable quality of venom.
  Later Markovic and Molnar constructed a new device that used an electric shock method
to stimulate the bees to sting.  It consisted of a wooden collector frame with wires that
were wound seven millimeters apart.4  Underneath the wires there was a thick rubber sheet
to hold the stingers left by the bees after receiving the shock and an absorbent paper to
collect the venom.  As a consequence of the loss of their stingers the bees died.  With this
type of collector only one frame could be connected to the collector device at a time.  
Based on certain technical parameters and the quality of the venom, this device may be
classified as the first of the four present generations of collector devices.
  With the development of electronics and the introduction of transistors in the 1960s there
was an opportunity to develop a collector device where the applied voltage, frequency and
current were regulated within certain limits.  The device also had a built in timer to allow
the output voltage to be interrupted for certain periods.  This interruption allowed the bees
to withdraw their stingers and survive as well as lowered the energy consumption.  This
second generation device was developed in the U.S.A. in 1963 by two students at Cornell
University named Benton and Morse.5  It was called the Cornell Venom Collector.  Their
collecting method was a further developed version of a first generation device used by
Markovic and Molnar and supplied bee venom in larger quantities for research purposes.
  Benton and Morse modified the collector frame as well.  Instead of putting a thick rubber
sheet and an absorbent paper underneath the wire grid, a bare glass sheet was used to
collect the deposited venom.  Later, to obtain a more pure venom, a thin plastic or rubber-
like material was applied to the surface to protect it from contamination.  In this case the
stinger of the bee penetrates through the protective material and the venom is deposited
directly onto the glass sheet.  The freshly deposited venom is a colorless liquid and has a
bitter-taste with an aromatic odor.  It dries quickly on the glass and is later scraped off in a
crystallized form.
  The color of the venom collected by a second generation device is brownish-yellow and
may be contaminated with nectar, pollen, feces or honey.  Bee venom solution prepared
from this venom is also brownish-yellow, but in smaller concentrations it might be
colorless.  This whole dried bee venom is the most widely used for research and in
preparations such as creams, liniments and ointments.6  These products can be found
mainly on the European market.
  Since the late 1980s integrated circuits have also been used in these devices requiring less
energy to operate which increases the devices mobility.  The advantages of this second
generation collector device are: the bees do not lose their stingers, therefore fewer bees
will die, venom can be collected in large quantities in different apiaries and by using a
protective material on the collector sheet the purity of the venom improves.  The second
generation collector devices are the most widely used on almost every continent.
  The quality of bee venom is determined by several factors such as: honey flow,
chronological age of the bees in the hive, weather conditions, venom collecting technology
and the technical parameters of the collector device.  Presently there are no widely
accepted standards for the quality of bee venom.  Every manufacturer who uses venom in
its products sets its own standards.  Consequently, venom collectors may or may not
supply the quality demanded by their clients.
  During 1991-92 one of the first steps Apitronic Services took was to develop the third
generation of bee venom collector devices.  Improvements over previous devices were
made by researching over 4,200 pages of literature on bee venom and its collection all
over the world.  This included a total of 36 patent applications studied on collector devices
used on three continents.  These devices based on their technical parameters and field
studies, belong to the second generation of bee venom collector devices.  Due to the lack
of scientific information on the efficiency of the previous devices, research required a
thorough study of bee biology, the behavior of bees when affected by electrical current,
frequency, minimum voltage needed to cause the bees to sting and the most suitable
protective material to cover the collector sheets.
  The major goal of Apitronic Services was to build collector devices whose technical
parameters were optimum for venom collection and supported by scientific literature.  The
venom collection should not be harmful to the bees and the collected venom had to be of
the highest quality.  From a safety perspective, a well adjusted device should not kill more
than 5 to 15 bees per hive during the 30 minutes of collecting time.  In practice, this
number averaged 6.8 bees per hive.7  By using integrated circuits in the devices, it was
possible to control several parameters such as frequency, voltage, current, wave forms and
time intervals.  Another important goal was to speed up the venom collecting process by
using 1 to 40 collector frames at the same time with one controlling device.8
  Honey bee venom is collected yearly around Calgary during the beekeeping season with
third generation collector devices.  Beekeepers voluntarily participate in venom collection
and a contract is arranged between the beekeepers and Apitronic Services specifying the
number of collections per season, the times, the locations and the fee paid for each.  It was
found that the local beekeepers were highly motivated to accept new methods and widen
their beekeeping operation.
  A day before the collection, the beekeeper is informed of the exact times and locations of
the collections but usually is not there during the collection period.  Collector devices,
used by Apitronic Services have the capability of collecting bee venom from 1 to 40 hives
at a time.  Bee hives are generally grouped in 24 hives to a bee yard and it is most suitable
to use 20 collector frames at one time.  After removing the covers of the hives the collector
frames are placed in an upside down position on top of the frames of each hive.  The
collector frames are connected with wires to each other and finally to the collector device.  
The collection time is 30 minutes.  During this time the device works automatically and
supplies preset impulses to the wire grids.  When the bee touches two wires and completes
the circuit she will receive a mild electric shock.  The effect of the shock results in her
stinging onto the glass collector sheet through a special space age material.  The stinger
penetrates through this material and the venom is deposited between it and the glass sheet.  
The alarm pheromone of the venom will mobilize the other bees and they will also sting
the protective material.  During the collection, more and
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