Apitherapy (bee venom therapy) uses controlled, diluted stings or extracts. Some small studies suggest anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects, but robust clinical evidence remains limited — it is not a substitute for proven treatment.
When a honeybee stings, its barbed stinger lodges in skin and detaches with the venom sac still pumping. This model shows a cutaway of skin tissue with an embedded stinger. Triggering a sting releases four key venom components that diffuse outward at different relative amounts, producing localized swelling.
Apitherapy proponents cite small studies on melittin's anti-inflammatory action and apamin's neurological interest, but major reviews (e.g. Cochrane) find the clinical evidence for bee venom therapy in conditions like arthritis or multiple sclerosis weak or inconclusive — and stings carry real anaphylaxis risk.
A cutaway 3D model of skin tissue showing exactly what happens when a honeybee's barbed stinger embeds and its venom sac keeps pumping — with the venom's key components spreading through tissue as a swelling forms.
Melittin, phospholipase A2, hyaluronidase and apamin are released in their real relative proportions and diffuse outward at different rates, driving pain, allergic response, venom spread and the localized wheal.
Trigger a sting, adjust venom dose and diffusion speed, highlight a single component to track it, and flip on apitherapy mode to compare a controlled micro-dose against a full sting.
Because the stinger is barbed, it tears free of the bee and keeps injecting venom via the still-attached muscle and sac — one reason a lodged stinger should be scraped out quickly rather than squeezed.