Biocultural importance of the European honey bee

The European honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) is the most important insect species in human care in Europe. Its original distribution area included Europe, Africa, and the Near East. Its native distribution in Europe, which included several subspecies [1], covered all the continent with the exception of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, the Azores, and northern Scandinavia. Today, wild colonies of European honey bee are becoming rare across the European landscape [2]. In fact, it is still being determined whether the honey bee continues to occur in the wild, because of the introgression of managed and feral colonies [3, 4]. Requier et al. [2] argue that wild colonies still exist in protected areas, such as the biosphere reserve of the Swabian Alb, Germany, nesting in beech trees. Scholars have recently presented the case for restoring wild populations, for example of the northern European dark bee (Apis mellifera mellifera L.), by ‘rewilding’ free-living colonies for nature conservation purposes and as a reserve for future needs [5].

As the wild population of European bees is very limited, domesticated bees have become crucial in plant pollination [6]. However, labeling the European honey bee as domesticated is a little inaccurate. Despite human control over these bees, the habits of the species have not been affected, but rather are the same whether the bees are wild, feral, or kept by humans [7]. People in Europe have cared for honey bees since the Neolithic era when honey started to be collected. With European colonization of the globe starting in the fifteenth century, the European honey bee has spread to other continents and is now found wherever the ecological conditions for beekeeping exist [8]. However, pollinators are threatened by climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and deforestation [9]. Besides their essential function in food and medicinal production, bees play a significant role in cultural, recreational, and emotional aspects, as sources of inspiration and traditional benefits for humans [9].

In Europe today, it is possible to make a living from only the sale of honey for beekeepers with at least 150–200 bee colonies. The general trend, for example in Estonia, is that most commercial honey will come from very large beekeeping companies in the future. Already today, there are about a dozen companies in Estonia that have more than 1000 hives (the largest has nearly 2,000) and they produce most of the honey on the market [10]. A similar trend is observed in Italy, where a small percentage of professional beekeepers (3.26%) manage over 34.45% of the hives, indicating a concentration of production among larger operators [11].

Overview of the importance of beekeeping products and apitherapy in Europe before the period of commercialization

Bees have been important to people in Europe in many ways. Honey was the only sweetener available for a long time [12]. During the Bronze Age, beeswax played an important role in various manufacturing processes, including bronze casting. Later, wax was used to make candles, especially important for churches, as well as molds and seals [8]. Another important bee product is mead (also known as honey wine), which is mentioned in Norse mythology and is still produced in the Balkans, Sweden, and elsewhere. In the nineteenth century, the peasantry in southern Scandinavia kept bees in straw hives, mainly for the honey [1, 13, 14]. For example, in the latter half of the nineteenth century and up to the beginning of the twentieth century, it was common for primary school teachers to tend beehives. They could have quite a few hives and, as there was no teaching in the summer, they had time to tend hives. Honey and other products also provided necessary income for the teachers' households [15].

Honey was mentioned by ancient doctors as a medicine, for example, to treat wounds. Honey is also found in ancient pharmacopeias and was used as a laxative. In addition, honey continues to be used as an in-home remedy for throat complaints, bronchitis, and rhinitis, as well as for rashes [16]. As a medicine, bees wax has also been used for a long time. For instance, Dioscorides wrote that wax has a warming and softening effect. It was prescribed to dysentery sufferers, among other patients. Propolis, a sticky, resinous substance, has long been used for medicinal purposes and was mentioned in Nordic drug tariffs and pharmacopeias as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, it was mainly used externally, especially as a cerata. Both yellow and white wax are found in older European pharmacopeias and were used as protective and covering agents and were included as ingredients in cerata, ointments, and plasters [17]. Yellow wax was prescribed into the nineteenth century as a palliative for intestinal disorders. Even the bees themselves could be prescribed in folk medicine. During the late Middle Ages in Denmark, it was believed that a woman could not get pregnant if she ate bees. Rubbing a crushed bee against your teeth prevented toothache, according to a record from Denmark [14].

The period of beekeeping commercialization

Ukrainian beekeeper Petro Ivanovich Prokopovych (1775–1850) is considered one of the founders of commercial beekeeping and the father of the modern hive because he invented the frame hive in 1814. This was a crucial innovation because previously bees were killed before extracting honey. What changed beekeeping more broadly, however, was the world's first hive with movable frames and an opening top, which was patented in 1852 by American beekeeper Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth (1810–1895). Yet, it was American beekeeper Charles Dadant (1817–1902) who made the top opening frame hive widely known. He was fluent in several languages and greatly contributed to European beekeeping through his popular articles. Open-top frame hives of the Langstroth and Dadant types are still among the most widely used in Europe today. However, there is an increasing shift toward smaller-sized box hives, invented by American beekeeper Clayton Leon Farrar (1904–1970) [18].

The introduction of frame hives allowed for the collection of various hive products and better production of honey and wax. The commercial production of pollen, royal jelly, bee venom, and propolis hardly existed before the 1950s—as the technology for the industrial collection of pollen and royal jelly was only developed in the 1940s, and a commercial method of collecting bee venom in a way that did not kill the bees was only developed in the 1960s [8].

The period of apitherapy commercialization

Bohemian doctor (based in Slovenia) Filip Terč (1844–1917) is considered the father of modern apitherapy in Europe. He started testing the use of bee venom to treat rheumatism in the 1870s, and his work inspired other European scientists such as Bodog Felix Beck (1868–1942), a Hungarian physician who published the book “Bee Venom Therapy” in New York in 1935 [19]. Beck's comprehensive book on bee venom treatment changed the general attitude worldwide. It is now considered the bible in the field and has been reprinted several times since the author's death, the last in 1997 [20].

In Eastern Europe, the usefulness of bee products for treating people and improving health began to be widely promoted by the USSR [21, 22] at the end of the 1950s. For example, in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, several books, brochures, and articles began to appear at that time, when beekeepers were being taught how to collect and use bee venom [23, 24], royal jelly [25, 26], propolis [27] and pollen [23], as well as how to use honey as a remedy [28].

In addition to the propaganda of using beehive products to improve health, pharmaceutical factories in the USSR began to manufacture medicines from the products of Soviet state beekeepers. For example, in 1969, a 30% alcoholic solution of propolis started to be produced in Tallinn [29]. In the 1970s and 1980s, mass pollen grains collection began in the Baltic Soviet republics in large state apiaries, and this yield was sold to other constituent republics of the Soviet Union and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Its production was considerably more profitable than the production of honey [30]. Some state apiaries, however, only specialized in collecting royal jelly, while others in collecting bee venom. These products were the most expensive and were sold at the Tallinn Pharmaceutical Plant. After the collapse of the USSR, the state-run purchase of these products disappeared [30]. Romania became the most important center of apitherapy in the 1980s, producing dozens of medicines. These products also had a major impact on the Soviet Union [31].

In Western Europe, apitherapy was not widespread until a few decades ago. For instance, the market for propolis, royal jelly, and pollen only started to develop in the 1990s, and a few years afterward, a few national associations of apitherapy were founded (the German one in 1999, the French one in 2008, and the Italian one in 2015). These associations mainly share apitherapy knowledge among physicians, beekeepers, and the general public. On top of the potential medicinal bee products including honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, and bee venom [32], some of these associations also promote apitherapy houses, or small wooden houses that provide a space for beehives and a separate space for people to enjoy the smell of hives (which they consider beneficial for the respiratory tract) and the buzzing of bees, which favors relaxation [33, 34].

Objectives of this research

Very few ethnomedicinal studies on apitherapy have been published in Europe, highlighting hive products that are collected, sold, or used by beekeepers. For example, one conference abstract reported that 95% of beekeepers in their Lithuanian sample had used hive products to strengthen their health, especially the elderly and those with a limited number of apiaries [35]. Another Croatian conference abstract reported that 82% of the interviewed beekeepers used their bee products for preventive or curative purposes, and that they valued beekeeping as a means of relaxation, physical activity, and escape from everyday problems. It was also emphasized that beekeeping supports their social interaction [36]. In a study conducted in Ukraine, beekeepers indicated that beekeeping gave them satisfaction ("beekeeping as a hobby, rest, art, a tool for self-realization"), and that they could benefit from apitherapy ("traditional medicine uses bee products for the treatment of various diseases") [37]. A survey conducted among beekeepers in England showed that working with bees helped beekeepers overcome the stress of lockdown and restore mental balance during the COVID-19 pandemic [38]. In Germany, hive products like honey, propolis, pollen, and royal jelly were used by (elderly) beekeepers to strengthen their health or treat a health condition [39].

The aim of this article is to provide a general overview of apitherapy practiced by beekeepers in different corners of Europe, namely Estonia, Ukraine, and Italy. Our study has two guiding research questions:

a) How do beekeepers value the health properties of honey and other hive products in the three selected European contexts? How are these products used?

b) What is the push and pull forces for apitherapy in the three selected countries??