Factors affecting the quantity and quality of honey bee venom collected from entrance and inside the beehive under Egyptian conditions

Abstract

Modern medicine has rediscovered the therapeutic properties of honey bee venom (HBV), a crucial byproduct of beehives. Since HBV has the potential to treat several diseases, a thorough evaluation of its quality and production practices is necessary through the measurement of chemical composition. The aim of this work is to comprehend how the season and beehive harvesting location (inside or entrance) impact the quality and production. The changes in the components, when HBV is collected from the entrance or within the hives and during different seasons, were studied using each set of 20 colonies. Since samples were measured every month from April to September 2021. The findings revealed that the collection site on the beehives, and season affect insignificantly on the amounts of the components that had been evaluated. While, seasons were found to differ significantly in the amounts of collected bee venom between inside and outside beehives which scored 0.030 ± 0.003 and 0.072 ± 0.002g in spring with outside and inside bee hives, respectively, while reached 0.107 ± 0.001 and 0.194 ± 0.011g in summer with outside and inside bee hives, respectively. However, the most important factors that affect the quality of HBV may be the incorrect harvesting and storage methods used by beekeepers.