Using apitherapy in patients with cancer

Honey and bee venom are being studied for their potential health benefits in veterinary medicine. In an interview with dvm360, Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM, professor of zoological medicine at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine in Athens, discussed how these substances produced by honey bees can be used in treatments for patients with cancer. The interview was recorded at the North American Veterinary Community’s 2025 Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX) in Orlando, Florida, where he presented a bee symposium that included a series of educational sessions.

The following is a transcript of the video:

Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM: We actually can use the products that the bees produce to improve the health of our patients and that whole concept is called apitherapy. It's thousands and thousands of years old. People have used it since dawn of civilization, and one easy example is the use of honey. Scientific evidence is there that [shows that] even eating a tablespoon or 2 tablespoons of honey a day has anticancer active properties.

There is the whole aspect that I am personally super excited about, about using bee venom to treat cancer patients. So, bee venom is a magical substance. There is, or we know of, about 20 different bioactive compounds that are in there. We don't yet fully understand all the mechanisms of how bee venom can be super anti-inflammatory, but also proinflammatory, if it's needed. It is also antineoplastic. So, we can use it, and that's what I'm doing in my research, treating cancer patients with it. And it's one of those case scenarios where we can use these adjuvant treatments to already existing [treatments], maybe chemotherapy.

Honey itself, for example, has the potential to protect the animal's body against negative consequence of chemotherapy. My dream, in the future, is that oncologists will embrace these papers. They will look at the scientific literature and while they're still using their traditional chemotherapy or radiation therapy, but then they will include apitherapy as an adjuvant treatment, because, to be honest, we can't do much harm with it. And the cool thing is that usually it's easy administered, it's available everywhere, it's cheap, it's readily [available]. Sometimes economy plays a role in treatment. And so, we have an alternative now and this is why I'm really excited to keep doing more research in that field.