In Kenya, bee stings are being used to treat illnesses

A patient arrives for treatment. But this won't be a typical medical procedure.

Instead she's getting bee venom therapy. She will be stung by bees - on purpose.

Stephen Kimani Kaboyo, Director and Founder of Bellafam Africa, carries out the treatment.

"We have first to know the patients. Some things called ultra-indications. If a patient is pregnant we do not really administer, if a patient has a transplanted organ we also do not administer on them. Also if a patient has got low blood pressure," he says.

Where he places the bee stings depends on what ailments the patient has.

"So we have got two points, we have got the general points and we've got the local points. Local point is you have maybe wrist pain, you have joint pain, knee pain, lower back, those are very local that can be administered directly. Then for general points, you have got asthma, your condition is in the lungs, so there are points which we use for administering here that we have integrated from Chinese traditional medicine, acupuncture points that are for the lungs. So once you do them we find our patient recovering very fast," he explains.

Rose Mwangi has come to this farm to get treatment for Lichen Planus, a chronic inflammatory skin condition that affects the skin, mucous membranes, hair, and nails.

It is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its skin or mucosal tissue, though the exact trigger is unknown.

For Rose, the condition affected her legs and back leaving her with itchy, flat-topped, purplish bumps.

"I had tried the normal medication and it was not working for me. The steroids were giving me so harsh side effects and so when I discovered about the apitherapy, I decided to try and I have tried and I have gone for seven sessions and now my skin has cleared up, no eruptions. And now I am happy that my skin is coming back to normal."

How does it work?

Its application is quite simple but the science behind it is a complex and uncharted field by modern medical standards.

In simple terms, if one has a condition like wrist pain, a bee will be caught and made to sting the patient in the area that is ailing and that triggers an internal immune response to that specific area.

As the body responds to the venom from the bee sting, the antibodies released to that area will also tend to the cause of the wrist pain.

Dr. Subramanian Sevgan from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, is cautious about the so-called science behind the treatment.

"When the venom is injected into your body, it induces immune responses within your body's impacts on the tissues and others. And some of the immune responses are produced by various proteins that are found in this venom, like one of the key proteins is called melittin. This kind of response, if regulated, can contribute to certain health benefits as well," he says.

"But so far in the modern medical world, extensive clinical trials for the bee venom therapy has not been conducted and some of the benefits of this bee venom therapy in some cases are still not really conclusive."

He urges caution as there are risks to using the treatment.

"Two things have to be considered, one thing is a person's sustainability to allergies because of bee venom. So if you do not understand that and you start engaging in bee therapy it can prove quite fatal. On the other hand, if the person is not allergic to bee stings and if that has been proved, this can be a supplementation for other treatment techniques and not a stand alone treatment," he says.

Kimani’s professional background isn’t in health and medicine but in civil engineering.

However, his passion for agriculture saw him pivot towards setting up a farmhouse and start this therapy business.