Bee stings are therapeutic, but do they actively seek out sick people?

Paradoxically, stings of the order hymenoptera have been shown to be generally therapeutic for humans. The colloquial expression of this: "beekeepers never get arthritis."

There is a specialty called apitherapy that uses bees and bee products for enhancing human health. There have been various standard medical studies showing that bee sting therapy in particular is effective, this one looks at its "adverse effects" (anaphylactic shock in the worst case).

So bee stings (and wasp and yellow jacket stings too, but these two are just harder to manage than are bees) have been used to treat arthritis and other conditions for millennia.

But this doesn't mean that bees actively seek out sick people to sting, does it?



Here's another story (possibly the origin of this Youtube story above?) by somebody saved from Lyme Disease by bee stings ...

Readers? Ever hear of any such story?