What's All The Buzz About?

Bees Provide Humans With More Than Just Painful Stings

(CBS) 
Some news you can use about bee stings: just because you swell up, doesn't mean you're allergic to bees. Only about 1 percent of people are. Worry if you break out in hives or have trouble breathing. And worry if so-called killer bees come after you.

Yes, they do exist and not just in horror movies like "The Swarm." Imported from Africa to Brazil in the 1950s, African killer bees worked their way into the southwest United States by the 1990s. Just so you know, it would take about 8 1/2 stings per pound of body weight to kill you.

Despite that, would you believe the bee sting is a miracle wonder drug? There are actually people who get stung by bees deliberately, like patient Kim Richards, for severe shoulder pain.

Dr. Andrew Kochan, an Encino, California, pain management specialist, and President of the American Apitherapy Society, is one of about twenty MDs in the United States who use the venom from bee stings extensively in their practices. He keeps a box of bees in his office, obtained from a local beekeeper.

Kochan says he's had significant success treating the excruciating pain of shingles.

Curtis Jenson went to Kochan for headache pain after having a brain tumor removed.

"I have to take anti-seizure medicine for the rest of my life and the less medication I have to take the better," Jenson says. "So as soon as they started doing the stingings, my pain definitely did drop."

For literally millennia, people have been taking advantage of what beekeepers discovered by accident — Alexander the Great, Confucius, even Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, used bee-sting therapy for pain. Bee venom it turns out is a powerful anti-inflammatory, and honey heals infections. It seals a wound, kills the bacteria, and then actually creates hydrogen peroxide.

"I mean, I'm not just a proselytizer for venom," Kochan says. "Bees have five, six different products. Five, six different things they make that have amazing effects to help people and help their lives and help their pain and their health and well being."

Just ask a beekeeper. David Graves keeps his hives on the roof of a Manhattan hotel.

"People want local honey to build immunity to allergies, so it was my customers that prompted me to put hives on rooftops here in New York," Graves says. "And the fact that there are no bears here either."

With his 14 hives on rooftops all over the city, he's something of a local celebrity, and he's got a sidekick — a Haitian cab driver named Antoine drives him around in exchange for beekeeping lessons.

How much New York City rooftop honey does Graves harvest? Are you ready? More than a ton a season. Yes, more than 2,000 pounds carried back to Earth a frame at a time in his duffle bag to be bottled and sold at New York City's biggest farmer's market.

So if you should find yourself in Gotham, look up. It's a bird, it's a plane.

No, it's a beekeeper.

[cweenbee-2009]

I missed your show, but I was told from a friend in Austin how educational and informative it was. I logged on and they were right! Thank-you for such a good job! I just so happen to be an apitherapist! Yes I have an active practice in the Laurel Highlands region of southwestern PA. I combine apitherapy (which is bee sting therapy combined with the use of the hive products such as honey, pollen, etc. for healing purposes) with shiatsu, which is a type of acupressure massage. My mission is education and promotion of natural healing. Questions welcome! - CJ [e-mail]

[mtnhoney]

Honey is mankind's oldest sweetener. 2 Million flowers to make just 1 pound of honey, WOW. When we talk about busy as a bee, I don't think we had any idea how much work this tiny little honeybee does to help pollinate our fruit and vegetables.

Here in America we have the best honey in the world. Clover from the west, buckwheat from the plains, tulip poplar and blackberry from the north, orange blossom from Florida and California and Sourwood Honey from the southern Appalachians.

My husband and I are life long beekeepers. We work hard to product the best product we can, 100% pure raw and natural honey. Today many honeys are adulterated with corn syrup or mixed with imported honey from other counties. Consumers should bee aware of products saying they have honey in their name, but read the ingredients %u2013 you may not fine one drop of real honey in the product.

Thank you CBS Morning Show for bring to light this wonderful program on honeybees and all the wonderful things we get from the honeybee.

Virginia Webb
349 Gastley Road
Clarkesville, GA 30523
MtnHoney.com

[dslayden-2009]

I have an interior beehive at our Science center and the kiosk has a video furnished by our local Beekeeper association.Your CBS Sunday Morning video was excellent and I would really like to use it in my exhibit. How can I get a copy of this to use?

[fdwt950]

I WOULD LIKE TO GET INFOMATION ON PAIN MANAGEMENT DOCTOR THAT'S USING BEE STINGS. I HAVE A FRIEND IN WEST TEXAS THAS SUFFER FROM SHINGLES. I THINK THIS COULD HELP HIM THANK YOU

[pollparker]

I did not see this story about the healing properties of bee stings, but my brother did in Boulder, Colorado.. Our dear mother (83)has been experiencing post herpetic neuralgia(nerve pain) for 3 months and living with me. Does any one know where I could go to find a bee keeper that could help my mom?
Polly Parker
[e-mail]
W. Simsbury, CT.

[shirttale1]

I have written and copyrighted a book entitled The Little Bee that Lost It's Buzz(C)which expresses through honeybees, faires, gnomes and animals the tremendous empact clearing of land for residential & commercial use,humans replanting the same plants, shrubs, trees and ground cover in their landscaping vs those provide by nature,insecticides and so on.

It is written for people of all ages in hopes of bring awareness through education, and encourage all to check with one's county extension agents for info on plantlife which provide food for bees, butterflys, lady bugs and other helpful insects.

If we do not help we will pay the price literally and see foods that we currently enjoy
possibly disapear.

Thank you so very much for this informative and entertaining HELLO from the Bees and their Keepers...which is all of us.

Sherra C. Jarrells
[e-mail]

[buffybee]

David says;
Thank you for doing this program on honey bees.
You did an excellent job of showing the honey bees role in nature in providing food. Also a good tool for education.

[masterblair-2009]

A great stroy as usual. But my first posting on a slight mistake in reference (I guess I am a geek that I am posting for such a thing). At the end of the story the reporter Marcia Tysner (not sure if that is the correct spelling) says... "So if you should find yourself in Gothom, look up. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a bee keeper".

Well obviously she is trying to use the Superman Quote. Trouble is that Gotham (City) is the home of Batman. Superman's home was Metropolis, USA.

I know it is a minor point. I myself am a minor geek. But this one stuck out large to me and I had to spring into action to save all humanity from this small oversite. I am sure by the end of the day this will really matter a great deal.

Toodles.

[tapstonebees]

Thank You CBS!!!

I have always enjoyed CBS this Sunday Morning, and today, I realize what a value education has for so many. You helped to provide informative insight to the life of bees, the beekeepers, and how important they are to the survival of us, Humans.

The extra bit about pain management is such a relief for so many. you have opened a door of hope, for those who had none left. Making people aware of the intrinsic value of Bees, and all that they offer, is a very valuable service. Thank You for making people more educated.

I have been keeping bees for a little over a year now, and what I am learning about nature, is amazing, keep sharing the knowledge.

TapStoneBees
[e-mail]

[beekeeper6]

How can I obtain a copy of :What's All The Buzz About?" Excellent presentation.

[ieg34jr]

I missed viewing "What's All the Buzz About". How can I get a copy to view that segment of the show or will it be shown again in the near future?

Beekeeping is my hobby and my wife tells me there are a couple of extraordinary scenes in the show.

I believe the written copy on the internet has a typing error near the end. I find it highly inprobable that 14 hives could produce 2,000 lbs of honey in one year in NYC. I would expect that type production in the Upper Midwest where there is ample sweet clover but not in a city.

Isaac Grove

[bunnygriffin]

I watched the show this morning with the Bees. Great Sunday Morning Eye Opener. I know when I was a Teenager my mother and I used to go and visit a friend of hers who was a bee/honey man.
(sorry don't know the actual job name)
He was in the town of Windsor Locks. It was great then to get all natural fresh honey from the town next door!

I was especially influenced by your Doctor who uses the bees stings to help with pain. I for one am glad I'm not in a lot of pain to try that I do have just a bit of a reaction to bee sting. When I get stung say in the foot my whole leg swells up and does not go down for at least 3 weeks with medicine. This though I think is because of my circulation.
I do have allergies and would like to get some information from you if I could. Do you have a Doctor who is around in my area or on the internet who cells the honey from Pine Trees, Rag Weed. I do mostly suffer from Mold in and out of the home. I would like to see if I could get some help from honey if possibly in a pill form? Or in my coffee?

Can you direct me to a good source of a honey seller/or Doctor who uses the honey as you mentioned for Allergies?

Thank You

Florence Griffin
384 Taylor Road
Enfield, CT 06082
[e-mail]

[d10pdoyl]

Thank you for your superb story about the much-maligned honeybee in "What's All The Buzz About?"
As amateur beekeepers, it breaks our hearts to hear people burning trees with wild hives just because they are ignorantly afraid. If it wasn't for the bee we wouldn't have much of the food we humans enjoy---as pointed out in your story. Please note though, one omission to the necessity of honeybees: if it weren't for honeybees the world would have no almonds. They enjoy a necessary symbiotic relationship.
Thank you again for your wonderful accurate reporting on the honeybee!