Ethical Considerations Raised by Honeybee Research

Overall, this research made use of the venom from 312 bees.  The apiaries from which these bees were collected are maintained by universities in Australia, Ireland, and England; each of these institutions has demonstrated a commitment to protecting pollinators and promoting optimal conditions for the maintenance of healthy bee colonies.

Click here to learn more about the centres for bee research at two different universities:

• University of Western Australia
• Trinity College Dublin

However, it should be noted that nowhere in the paper by Duffy et al. (2020) was there any mention of receiving ethics clearance for the use of honeybees, nor did authors describe their adherence to any kind of animal care guidelines.  Although no comments were made in this paper regarding the euthanization of honeybees or bumblebees, the manual removal of their stingers and venom glands constitutes a major change to their anatomy.  Many other studies of the therapeutic properties of honeybee venom have made use of alternative venom collection methods, such as administering electric shocks to bees in order to make them sting a glass plate, thus depositing their venom there without the need for venom gland removal (Gu et al., 2018).  Nevertheless, some studies demonstrate a much greater disregard for bee conservation efforts, euthanizing bees and then freezing them prior to the removal of their venom glands (Rakha et al., 2018).  Future research using honeybees would do well to ensure that venom is collected without inflicting lasting harm on honeybees, which has proven to be possible through the use of creative methods.

While the study of animals and insects for their medicinal properties has enabled huge advances in pharmacology, the ethics of this research must be intensely scrutinized when these organisms are endangered.  As such, this chapter would be remiss not to address the devastating losses of honeybee populations around the world.  Honeybees are responsible for 80% of all pollination worldwide according to Greenpeace, but the United States has reported a 90% decline in bee colonies since 1962 amongst their crops that are pollinated by bees.  The causes of this decline are interrelated, with habitat loss and harmful agro-industry pesticides playing an important role.  Given the promise that honeybee venom has demonstrated as an anticancer agent, it is now of increased importance for bee conservation efforts to proceed with full force.

For more information about this ecological issue and what you can do to help, please click here!

How Reflective is Apitherapy Treatment: From a Dish of Cells to Human Clinical Trials

Honeybee venom is a great treatment option as it is a non-invasive technique that is globally available, cost-effective and easily accessible (Duffy et al., 2020). However, the use of apitherapy as a treatment option requires more research in the lab before it can be accomplished in human clinical trials. This study offers a glimpse into a new therapeutic for many cancer types associated with poor prognosis; however, there are some considerations to take into account, such as toxicity of the venom in larger doses, the use of a small sample size (i.e., breast cancer cells) and model (i.e., mouse models), and the long-term effects (i.e., only small time-frames were observed upon treatment of either venom or melittin in transformed cells compared to non-transformed cells). Therefore, this study is not reflective in showing how apitherapy treatment can be accomplished in humans and more research needs to go into this before it is done in humans.

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