A glass or acrylic plate strung with fine electrode wires is placed at the hive entrance. A weak, harmless electric pulse makes returning foragers sting the plate instead of skin. Because the membrane isn't elastic like flesh, the barbed stinger doesn't lodge and tear free — the bee flies off largely unharmed, having lost only a droplet of venom that dries on the glass for scraping and collection.
0.1–0.3 mg of venom — mostly water plus the peptide melittin, which makes up about half its dry weight.It typically takes tens of thousands of stings to collect a single gram of dried venom — which is one reason apitherapy products and injectable venom-derived drugs remain expensive, and why most apitherapy claims (for arthritis, MS and other conditions) still lack strong clinical trial evidence.
An electrified glass collector plate sits at the hive entrance: mild pulses make returning bees sting the membrane instead of skin, leaving a droplet of venom behind while the bee flies off largely unharmed.
Because the collector's surface isn't elastic like flesh, the barbed stinger doesn't lodge and tear free — most bees survive stinging it, unlike stinging a mammal. Droplets dry on the glass for scraping into vials.
Raise the stimulus voltage to trigger more frequent, larger pulses of stinging, and adjust foraging traffic to change how many bees are near the entrance. Toggle the hive cutaway and reveal the melittin peptide model for context.
It takes roughly tens of thousands of stings to collect a single gram of dried venom — one reason apitherapy products stay costly, and why most therapeutic claims for arthritis or MS still lack robust clinical trial support.