Although reports of pain reduction (analgesic and antinociceptive) and anti-inflammatory effects of bee venom injection are accumulating in the literature, it is common knowledge that bee venom stings are painful and produce inflammation. In addition, a significant number of studies have been performed in the past decade highlighting that injection of bee venom and components of bee venom produce significant signs of pain or nociception, inflammation and many effects at multiple levels of immediate, acute and prolonged pain processes. 

This report reviews the extensive new data regarding the deleterious effects of bee venom injection in people and animals, our current understanding of the responsible underlying mechanisms and critical venom components, and provides a critical evaluation of reports of the beneficial effects of bee venom injection in people and animals and the proposed underlying mechanisms. Although further studies are required to make firm conclusions, therapeutic bee venom injection may be beneficial for some patients, but may also be harmful. 

One hurdle to progress in the field has been the study of either deleterious or beneficial effects with little regard for the opposing effects. The field is severely lacking research intended to bridge the understanding that bee venom injection is both acutely proinflammatory and pro-nociceptive, but can also be anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive. Proponents of BVT continue to produce findings that are interpreted erroneously as suggesting that bee venom has only beneficial effects.  

As Western medicine becomes more amenable to include alternative and complementary treatments such as BVT, it is critical that future research be as strict in design and interpretation as possible in the immediate future. Acknowledgements  

Chen, Jun, and William R. Lariviere. "The nociceptive and anti-nociceptive effects of bee venom injection and therapy: a double-edged sword." Progress in neurobiology 92.2 (2010): 151-183.

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