Apitherapy: What It Is, What Research Shows and the Safety Rules

Apitherapy ("API-ther-a-pee") is a long word for using products from honeybees to try to prevent or treat illness. Some of these products are everyday foods. Others, like venom, are dangerous when used wrongly. The evidence for each one is very different, so this guide takes them one at a time and then covers the safety rules they share.

Read this first

• "Apitherapy" is not one treatment. It lumps together honey, propolis, royal jelly, pollen, bee bread, beeswax and venom. A result for one product tells you nothing about the others. [1][19]
• The strongest human evidence in the whole field is for honey: for acute cough in children and for some wounds and burns. A review of Cochrane evidence on ten complementary practices found high-quality evidence only for three apitherapy uses: honey for burns, honey for acute cough in children, and bee venom (given under medical care) to prevent allergic reactions to insect stings. [9][10][19]
• Allergic reactions are the most common harm across all bee products, including severe ones, and people with other allergies are at higher risk. Deaths have been reported after deliberate bee venom therapy. [1][2][3]
• Never give honey to a baby under 12 months. Honey can carry spores that cause infant botulism. [18]
• Sellers often make disease claims for bee products. In 2023 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote to one seller that its claims for propolis, royal jelly and honey made the products unapproved drugs. [16]

What the word covers

Apitherapy is commonly used for these products, all made by or taken from honeybees:

• Honey, made from flower nectar (or sometimes honeydew).
• Propolis, a sticky resin bees gather from plants and use to seal the hive.
• Royal jelly, a milky secretion that feeds young larvae and queens.
• Bee pollen, pollen granules that bees pack and carry back.
• Bee bread, pollen that bees have stored in comb and that has fermented.
• Beeswax, the wax that forms the comb.
• Bee venom, taken from the sting, or delivered by live stings or injection.

A fuller list of products in the field also includes brood and other hive materials, and some practitioners offer "hive air", breathing the air inside a hive. We searched Europe PMC for hive-air inhalation and found no human trial in the abstracts we read. One of those papers was a patient survey, which found the idea is largely unknown to patients and that most find it unappealing. [20][21] "Hive air" claims are therefore not evidence-based in what we read.

Who practises it

Beekeepers, herbalists and complementary-medicine practitioners offer bee products, often alongside other treatments. Bee venom is also given as "bee venom acupuncture" (also called pharmacopuncture) in Korean medicine, where a diluted venom is injected at acupuncture points. [7][8] In one review of Korean clinical guidelines and practice surveys, bee venom was named a safety concern because of possible hypersensitivity. [22] Most people meet apitherapy in a much plainer way: honey in the cupboard, or a propolis lozenge or royal jelly capsule from a health store.

Evidence map, product by product

"Human studies" here means controlled trials or reviews of them, as far as the sources we read. Not finding a human trial in our sources is not proof that none exists.

What regulators say

FDA (United States). The FDA decides whether a product is a drug by what the seller says it does. In a 2023 warning letter, the FDA reviewed a seller's website and found claims that propolis was antibacterial, antiviral, antitumor and helped heal bone fractures, and that royal jelly was recommended for high blood pressure and cholesterol. It said these claims make the products unapproved "new drugs", because they are intended to treat or prevent disease. It also said the products lacked adequate directions for use. [16] This is one letter, not a ruling on every bee product, and it does not say the products are harmful.

The FDA has also warned the public about "royal honey" products sold for sexual enhancement. In a 2020 notice (updated 2021), it reported that one tested product contained tadalafil, the active drug in Cialis, which was not listed on the label. It can lower blood pressure to dangerous levels in people who take nitrate medicines. [17] This is a hidden-drug problem, not a property of honey or royal jelly.

European Union. The EU judges food health claims through the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). EFSA published a 2011 opinion covering royal jelly health claims, but we could not open it, so we do not state what it concluded. For how the EU treats health claims and traditional herbal medicines in general, see our EU regulation page. We did not read an EU novel-food decision for propolis or royal jelly, so we say nothing about it here.

Allergy and anaphylaxis

A 2026 review of safety reports (including FDA, European and Australian databases) found that allergic reactions were the most common adverse events from apitherapy products, especially in people with atopy (a tendency toward allergies). [1] A 2025 review of allergic risks says bee products can cause anything from skin inflammation to severe whole-body anaphylaxis, and that people with atopy and beekeepers are at higher risk. [2]

Product examples from the studies we read:

• Royal jelly: a case series described seven people who developed asthma, some with anaphylaxis, after eating it. Tests showed true IgE-mediated allergy. [12]


• Propolis: Italy's national surveillance system received 18 suspected reactions in about five years. Sixteen were allergic. Six people were hospitalized or went to an emergency department. The authors said propolis is a strong sensitizer and should be avoided by allergic people, especially those allergic to pollen. [13]


• Bee pollen and venom: see the product pages.

Call 911 (or your local emergency number) for trouble breathing, swelling of the face, lips or throat, fainting or a weak pulse after any bee product. See bee products and allergy warning signs and anaphylaxis and severe allergic reactions.

Stings and deliberate venom therapy

Venom therapy is the highest-risk part of apitherapy, and the only part where we say plainly: do not do it unsupervised.

• A systematic review of 145 studies found that in audit studies a median of about 29% of people had adverse events. In randomized trials, bee venom acupuncture raised the risk of an adverse event about 3.6 times compared with saline injection. The authors noted the reporting quality was poor. [3]
• A review of 80,523 patients in Korea who got bee venom pharmacopuncture found bee venom hypersensitivity in 37 and anaphylaxis in 3 (0.019%). Most events were mild. [7]
• A case report described a woman who had received bee venom several times without a reaction, then had a severe system-wide reaction to a new "sweet bee venom" product. She needed an adrenaline (epinephrine) injection. [6]
• Reviews state that anaphylaxis and deaths have occurred with bee venom acupuncture and that how often is unknown. [1][8]
• Recent reviews of small trials in muscle pain and Parkinson's disease reported no anaphylaxis in the studies they included, but those trials were small, and the reviewers call the evidence limited. [4][5] Trials run by medical teams with emergency equipment do not show that unsupervised stinging is safe.

If you are allergic to stings, carry prescribed adrenaline and avoid deliberate stings. Venom immunotherapy for people with sting allergy is a medical treatment given by an allergy specialist, and is different from apitherapy. [19]

Quality and buying

• Bee products are sold as foods, supplements and cosmetics. The sources we read describe hidden drugs found in some products sold as "royal honey" and in some pollen supplements. [1][17]
• Honey labelling and adulteration are covered in honey adulteration, labels and how to choose.
• Sellers' disease claims are a warning sign. [16]
• Honey for wounds means sterile medical-grade dressings made for the purpose, not a jar from the cupboard. See medical-grade honey and wound care. The wound trials in the Cochrane review tested specific honey products. [10]

How to talk to a clinician

• Bring the actual product or a photo of the label. Say which bee products you use, how often, and why.
• Tell them about any allergies, asthma, eczema or hay fever, and whether you have ever reacted to a sting.
• Ask about your medicines, pregnancy or breastfeeding, and surgery plans. The sources we read for this guide do not describe pregnancy or breastfeeding safety for these products, so ask. See pregnancy and breastfeeding.
• Do not stop a prescribed treatment to use a bee product. Raise it first.
• If a seller says a product treats a serious disease, ask your clinician what the evidence is before you pay.

Related pages

• Check before you use bee products: who should be careful
• Bee products and allergy warning signs
• Honey and infant botulism
• Honey for cough and sore throat: what trials found
• Medical-grade honey and wound care
• Bee venom