in a world brimming with complexity few creatures
embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless
precision she dances from bloom to bloom each
motion guided by millennia upon millennia of
instinct each act in service to the whole and
then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards
of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist,
part poet, they move along their hives with the
efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to
the bees' needs as best they can comprehend,
and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the
Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing
like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their
journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping
presented by our good friends and partners in
beekeeping. Man Lake. Today we're going all the
way to Romania for the first in our series about
everything Apitherapy. Our guest is the world's
leading authority on Apitherapy, Dr. Stefan Stangaciu,
MD. If you've ever wanted to learn more about
the healing properties and benefits of honey,
propolis, bee venom, pollen, royal jelly, even
bee air and more, I think you'll really enjoy
hearing from Dr. Stefan. He and I could have
talked for hours and hours, but we tried to keep
it succinct enough to fit into two or three episodes.
In part one today, we dig deep into the healing
benefits of propolis and also learn the best
way to extract honey. for medicinal and health
purposes. First, I've just got to mention this
lantern fly honey that's all the buzz right now.
One person described it as, instead of the gentle
sweet taste of regular honey, it's more like
your grandparents cough drops. This dark reddish
mysterious honey has been described by a professional
taster as having notes of smoky, savory, salty,
resinous, and lightly fruity. Some people absolutely
love it, some just think it's weird, but no,
really the weird part is how it's made. You see,
lanternflies secrete a sticky, sugary substance
after slurping on tree sap in late summer and
fall. That's secretion. also known as poop, is
sucked up by honey bees taken back to their hives
and treated like nectar, eventually becoming
honey, lanternfly honey. So if you're offered
some new lanternfly honey, at least now you'll
know what you're putting in your mouth. I am
unbelievably excited today because we have a
guest You all know that I'm interested in apotherapy,
and we have today who I think is the world's
foremost authority on apotherapy, and he is over
in Romania, Dr. Stefan Stengetu. Welcome to the
show. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me here.
And I paused because I wanted to make sure I
pronounced your name properly. Did I get close?
You are very good, very good, very good. Thank
you so much. Hey, before we jump into the down
and dirty of really what apotherapy is, give
us a little bit of your background so people
realize your qualifications both in the medical
field and you're a beekeeper too. Okay, yes.
So I'm a medical doctor. I'm a specialist in
family medicine. And I have also what are called
like over specializations in acupuncture and
apiphytoaromatherapy. So apitherapy is the B
products for health. Phytotherapy is like herbal
medicine. And aromatherapy, everybody knows.
And I discovered the bees in 1991. When I heard
about the Keepers having unbelievable healing
successes, beekeepers who were not medical doctors,
and still they got excellent results. So I went,
I spoke with these people and I said, wow, wow,
it's very interesting. So if a normal person,
a beekeeper can heal better than the doctors,
certain diseases, I said, this is something very
interesting. So I need to study. So I went to
Bucharest, Bucharest and Bucharest, it were at
the time two big libraries on beekeeping, but
So if a lot of articles and books on AP therapy,
and this was in 1991, I started one summer long,
all these books I copied, photocopied everything
I can, I could. And then I started to put all
this information in a nice order according to
traditional Chinese medicine, because I studied
already before that traditional Chinese medicine.
And the Chinese medicine has a kind of thinking
which is very interesting. It's kind of a mnemonic
method, like Yin and Yang, the five elements.
And then when you have in front of your eyes
these symbols, they are like filters helping
you to diagnose and also to establish a treatment.
So after 1991, after I started to treat my own
patients with apitherapy, at the beginning I
made mistakes. For example, some of the patients
I put too many bestings too soon, not detoxing
the body, not taking all the other measures.
So six, seven patients have had allergic reactions.
Fortunately, it were not big allergic reactions,
but still was uncomfortable. So step by step
I learned and then I started to give lectures
in other countries. And my strategy, if you want,
was to, I was giving books or articles or knowledge.
and in exchange I've got other knowledge on other
books and other journals and so on from the people
I was visiting. So now we have in Romania one
of the best apitherapy databases in the world.
I am now the president of the International Federation
of Apitherapy. I was 20 years president of the
German Apitherapy Society and I organized there
over 20 international events with speakers from
all over the world. And I'm also president of
the Romanian Apitherapy, Phytotherapy and Aromatherapy
Society. So I'm telling you this just to tell
you that there are so many people in apitherapy
all over the world. So I calculated over 100
,000 apitherapy practitioners in almost every
country, except Antarctica. In every country
where there are bees, there are also apitherapy
practitioners. During all these years, of course,
I refined step by step my treatment protocols,
my thinking. And what is amazing, every day I
learn new things. So it's unbelievable. The topic
is really huge because the bees are living beings.
The bee colony is extremely complex and we learn
a lot from them. Wow. The topic is huge. And
so I hardly know where to start because there's
so much to cover. I'm tempted to keep you here
longer than we earlier agreed to to have two
sessions come out of this, but we'll see how
it goes. Give us an overall idea. A lot of us
have heard of bee sting therapy. Some of us have
even messed around with it a little bit, but
I know that you have experience with other hive
products. Tell us everything from the bee hive
that you use. And I'm guessing it's everything.
Yes, yes, yes, you are right. It's everything.
And most people, they know about honey. And also
one other thing, unfortunately, most beekeepers,
they focus in the production only to honey. And
this is a huge missed opportunity because I give
you just a short explanation here. If you look,
the health is more important than food, than
nutrition. Categorical is more important than
health. For the beekeeper who wants to survive
on the market because of the prices and so on
and so on, the idea to sell his honey as a food
is a bad idea. If you look to the health element,
the honey is very, very important for the healing
properties like antioxidant, antibacterial, antiviral,
anti -inflammatory, and so on, because it contains
several groups of substances. And one of the
most important is the one on polyphenols. Now,
in the pollen you find like 50 times more polyphenols
than in honey. And in propolis, you find like
200 times more. So if you want to have a healing
effects, pollen, bee bread, propolis are much
more important than honey. And the price is that
the sales of the beekeeper when they go on these
other products. can give to the beekeeper enough
amount of money to be able to survive and not
only to survive to go to higher levels like to
open for example we'll discuss maybe later a
bee house for beehive air therapy okay now this
is a short introduction there are some other
mistakes the beekeepers are doing for example
centrifugation the honey centrifugation from
the apitherapy point of view. It's also a mistake.
The best honey is the one which is like slowly,
slowly pressed or dripping honey. And the best
method is to have a sterile container. And then
you have a frame. Then you make like small pouches.
How do you call it? Like you sting each cell
of the hexagonal of the comb. You need to open
up the cappings. Yes, but you do it not not brutally
like classical like all of them once just in
each hexagonal cell you make one small or say
like two small holes and the honey will drip
slowly slowly here and the contact of honey with
air will be limited and this is the main problem
in centrifugation because in centrifugation A
small amount of honey is spread with big force
on the internal wall of this cylinder and the
honey is exposed to huge amounts of air and air
contains oxygen and oxygen oxidizes. So a part
of the polyphenols of the honey which are antioxidant
are destroyed by this oxidation. It's not a strong
oxidation but still it's an oxidation. The other
bad thing is that in the air, the air is not
sterile. The air in a PRE, where there is no
centrifugation room, the air is full of microbes
and spores and viruses. If you ask a physician,
no, not a physician, a physicist, how many dust
particles are in the air, they will tell you
that in one cubic meter, is there are like 200
,000 to 400 ,000 dust particles. So practically,
the beekeeper brings centrifugation, oxidizes
the honey, and contaminates the honey. If you
ask a specialist in microbiology, they will tell
you that on these dust particles, every third,
fourth dust particle may have a virus on it.
So it's really a contamination of the honey.
And the third very, very bad thing which is happening
because of this huge contact surface with the
air, the honey loses a lot of aromas, a lot of
essential oils, a lot of perfumes. And these
essential oils are very powerful antimicrobial,
antiviral, anti -inflammatory. And you know,
when you take a honey, as it is very fresh from
the beehive, from the honeycomb, the taste is
wonderful, the aroma is wonderful. But the same
frame when you make centrifugation, and then
you put in the jar, is not any more so aromatic.
So the problem for apitherapy is that if you
have this excessive centrifugation and if the
beekeeper also is using a lot of smoking the
quality of honey will diminish and as a result
of this the healing effect will not be so powerful.
So you lose time and this is not good to have
it, to lose it. Alright, I have to interject
a couple of quick things here. And that is if
you're a commercial beekeeper with a thousand
or ten thousand hives, it's probably not realistic
that you can harvest honey that way. But if you
have a few hives, it sounds like maybe this is
something that you can do. Can I give the contra
argument to this? Yes. Yeah, please. Yes. Yes.
So. when that commercial beekeeper will get for
his honey let's say 20 -30 % more money than
before you will find the technical solutions.
And the human mind is unbelievably creative.
Now imagine that instead of having these complicated
machines with the, like pushing the frames one
after another and then the uncapping and then
centrifugation, there are so many operations.
Here it will be just like, you know, like acupuncture.
Imagine a table, like with thousands needles.
which looks upwards and you make a system where
you put 100 such frames on top of this system
with thousand needles let's say and then just
a short tuck all of them once then a bit like
this and then you replace all the this needles
part with the containers and then you do some
other things of course the dripping of honey
will not be so fast like going out of the cells
but the time to do centrifugation and also to
wait then three days for the air to go out of
the honey. And then you put the honey into the
barrel. So like if you compare three days with
maybe one hour, it's a big difference. The other
problem for the quality of the honey, for medicinal
beekeeping, we need the honey which has almost
no bacteria. And now, to be very, very sincere,
if you ask 100 commercial beekeepers, you ask
them, how do you do, you start the centrifugation.
Let's say at the end of the season, you got 1
,000 beehives and you want to do that centrifugation.
So they use these centrifugation machines. And
normally, after each centrifugation in the evening,
they need to sterilize the container. to wash
with hot water and sterilize it. And then ask
them to be very sincere. How many of them are
doing every evening this cleansing of the machine
inside? Maybe one in 20. So what is happening?
So they do day after day centrifugation in the
same centrifuge without cleaning it every evening.
As a result of this, if you make microbial analysis
in the first day, and let's say after 10 days,
the amount of microbes in the honey grows, grows,
grows, grows, grows. Because the dust particles,
I told you, they contaminate the honey. So there
are many, many arguments. So my advice, because
we are on this topic, to the commercial beekeepers,
at least for their own health, for their own
family. Let's say they have 1 ,000 colonies.
They can put aside from this 1 ,000 colonies,
let's say 50 colonies to make for apitherapy,
for health, for their own family. And then they'll
get step -by -step accustomed, comfortable with
these other systems. And then they will expand.
It may seem early, but right now is a great time
to order your live bees for 2026 because they
do sell out and because Man Lake is offering
a discount for Be Love Podcast listeners. Wait,
what? I know you're saying live bees, they never
go on sale. Well, they are now. Click on over
to Man Lake, order your bees any variety. nukes
or packages and anything in the beginner essentials
category and when you check out use the code
get started in bees it's down in the show notes
so you don't have to remember for a discount
on everything so get your orders in early and
save yeah just to give an incentive about the
prices you know very well all American people
all over all the beekeepers all over the world
they know now about the manuka honey model so
manuka honey a normal honey i would say a bit
more different substances there but it's a normal
honey and still the final price of manuka honey
in germany in manuka honey form of tube like
20 grams of manuka honey medicinal honey it's
40 euro so 20 grams which is a soup spoon so
if you made the calculation it goes to 2000 euro
per kg of honey Okay, so why not to go into this
direction? And because the health again is much
more important than simple nutrition or simple
food. Yeah, it's great marketing. Yeah, people.
It's fantastic marketing. Okay, let's talk about
propolis. Okay. Now, with the propolis, it's
also a huge topic. The best things. uh in the
mind when you explain also to the to the patients
to the customers to everybody you need to start
from the plants which are producing the resin
and balsams which the bees collect to make their
own propolis now here is an interesting correlation
the trees which are making these resins and balsams
or the shrubs mostly trees and shrubs they are
fixed living beings they have the roots and they
cannot move and it's a funny kind of saying when
a tree has a disease cannot go to the hospital
so it cannot go to the neighbor to ask for help
so what is the tree to do when it has a disease
bacterial viral and so the tree must produce
its own remedies okay so in the trees are on
earth for millions of years. So they went through
all these glaciations and all this huge amount
of years and they were constantly attacked by
other living beings like bacteria, fungus, parasites,
even viruses. You can say that they're partially
living being for millions of years. So the trees,
they developed a method to defend. And here is
a very, very interesting aspect. If you compare
the trees in the pharma industry, the trees are
much, much more clever than the pharma industry
regarding the antibiotics. The pharma industry
is using antibiotics based on only one molecule.
The agriculture industry uses also one kind of
insecticide, one substance. And when you take
an insect or you take a microbe, or a virus with
only one molecule if you keep in mind that the
bacteria for example has thousands hundreds of
thousands of different molecules and the bacteria
are very intelligent at their level, they speak
together, they communicate together, they create
all kinds of defense mechanisms. So one molecule
is a big mistake. If you look maybe, you know,
in the past it was a substance, an insecticide
called DDT and it was against the Colorado bugs.
Okay, so now you can use one ton of DDT and the
Colorado bugs are laughing at you. What is Mother
Nature doing? Mother Nature, in the last millions
of years, when the tree is attacked by viruses
or bacteria, they create these protective substances
around the buds and also on the bark inside and
also inside the leaves. And there is a cocktail
of substances, extremely, extremely complex,
with hundreds of substances, different substances,
which are destroying the viruses, bacteria, fungi,
parasites through different mechanisms. So this
allows the trees to survive. Of course, sometimes
there are bacteria or viruses which are very
aggressive and may destroy some of the trees,
but they will not destroy usually all the forests
or all the trees. And now the incredible part
about this, I read a study made in England. They
analyzed this cocktail of substances which are
protecting the birds. to various poplars because
they understood, the beekeepers understood that
the bees they like to go to poplars, to the black
poplars. The Latin name is Populus nigra. And
then they went to analyze the buds, the composition
of these buds, like it were, let's say, 10 poplars
in a row. They analyzed the composition of these
buds, poplar number 1, number 2, number 3, number
10. And when they analyzed the laboratory, they
were surprised to see that there were differences
from 3 to 3. It was not the same standard substance
like pharma industry is using with the antibiotics.
And then the even bigger surprise was when the
same team of researchers, they went next year
to the same area, they analyzed again the composition
of these poplar buds, and then they saw that
the same tree, which last year was having a certain
composition, this year, like next year, it was
another composition. So the intelligence of the
trees is... In order to fight an enemy, I need
multiple weapons, I need multiple strategies,
and I need to change these strategies every year.
So the bees, which are also attacked by bacteria,
virus, fungus, parasites for millions of years,
Of course, they need to have also this protection.
And because they have a smell, extraordinary
smell with their antennae, like 100 times better
than the dogs, they smell and they analyze the
nature around and they found out the best sources
of such substances. And then they go, they collect
these resistant balsams and then they make their
propolis inside the beehive with adding some
beeswax inside. So propolis, if you see it from
this point of view, You understand the propolis
is very good and has protected the bees for so
many years. There are some very, very interesting
research now in Minnesota, I believe, is Professor
Marla Spiebach. She showed that a bee hive which
has more propolis inside is healthier, has less
varroa. So this is another element here. And
then the beekeepers during thousands of years,
not hundreds of, but thousands of years, They
understood that propolis protects the bees and
this was the beauty they started to use for their
own health. So now we have a huge industry on
propolis. There are over 30 -40 different types
of formulations like you have eye drops, you
have capsules, tablets, nose sprays for ears,
for the stomach, even intravenous you can do
propolis extracts, water extract, alcoholic extract
or oil extract. So practically for every anatomical
part of the body we have a special preparation.
And then for the good doctors who are using apitherapy,
using propolis, the art is to use the right amount,
to use the right administration formula through
what anatomical way. And usually there is like
a golden rule, when you use more anatomical ways,
you administer the product through more anatomical
ways, you have a faster healing. Let's say that
A beekeeper, they have their own bees and they
want to, from a practical standpoint, use propolis
or honey for their own personal health for their
family. What kinds of things would it work for?
And I should have asked you this about honey
before we moved on. We'll come back to that.
But for propolis, what do I use it for? Is it
for a sore throat? What's it for? Good question.
Very good. So for the beekeeper, the best kind
of extract of propolis is the hydroalcoholic
extract, which is called the tincture. And if
you look all over the world, all countries, they
use propolis mainly in this form. and this is
correct because the scientists they found out
that in order to extract these polyphenols the
best solvent is alcohol. My suggestion to to
your listeners is not to take those recipes from
50, 60 years ago, because it was a recipe like
something like this, like you take 20, 30 grams
of raw propolis and you put in 70, 80 milliliter
of alcohol and you put in a dark place and you
let it there stay for three weeks and then three
times per day you... do this shaking okay so
this is the old old system now there are modern
methods to get the extraction of properties not
in three weeks but in one day even in one hour
so these methods are based on the concept of
like the question funny question is in that old
books it was written three times per day you
should shake the solution and my question is
when i'm giving lectures is why only three times
per day Why not 10 times per day? Why not 100
times per day? Why not 1 ,000 times per day?
Why not to use a machine which makes non -stop
this movement? When you combine these kind of
machines which are moving non -stop the solution,
of course, the contact between alcohol and properties
will be better, instruction is better. Now there
is another modern method, a very good one, faster
than this one, which I'm telling you. is there
are devices called ultrasonicators. The ultrasonicators
are devices where you have like a water bath
like a container and below here is the electrical
part which heats the solution. You set the heating
how much you want to be the solution heated and
then you can have also activate with the button
the ultrasounds. So the ultra sounds are making
this movement of the molecules and the heat also
is the Brownian movement at the molecular level.
It's also much, much faster like this because
of the heat. So with this method, you can get
an extraction of propolis maybe in one hour.
And when you know that the extraction is finished,
when you see that the solution has the same color,
it doesn't change the color. like before was
alcohol was transparent propolis was here and
here so when the solution the color is constant
and also when the taste of the solution is constant
it's normally it's finished the the extraction
yeah okay so you get this tincture from from
this from this water bath and then There are
several situations here. So first of all, it
depends on who is taking the propolis and is
there to take it. If it's a strong beekeeper,
has not special diseases, it's no problem to
take the tincture in some honey. Let's say 10
drops of propolis tincture in a teaspoon of honey
and then prepare separately some tea and then
they can take it directly. If they want to treat
the child or the woman, let's say the woman is
pregnant or somebody old in the family, the alcohol
from the tincture may be too strong. There are
no studies, they say that alcohol in any amount
is not good for the body. In this situation,
We have the propolis tincture, like I have here
this propolis tincture. And then I will put drops,
one drop here, one drop here, one drop here,
one drop here. So small amounts on a sterile
plate. And then I wait for the alcohol to evaporate.
So once the alcohol evaporates, and this is very
simple, I don't need a special laboratory, then
I can get this. extract if you say like it's
called soft propolis extract or some honey some
crystallized honey or you know a piece of bread
or some more cooked rice and then you can use
it internally. This is the easiest way to do
it but there are other ways to do it if there
are people for example in the family somebody
who smokes a lot somebody who has the the skin
is very dry they have less fats in the body the
alcohol tincture will be a bad idea. But if you
make the propolis not tincture, you do not use
the alcohol as a solvent, but you use oil, like
olive oil, sunflower oil, pumpkin oil, argan
oil, any oil which is cold pressed, then you
get an oil propolis extract. So this one you
can use in the nose. You can use in any surfaces
where the alcohol is not recommended, like genital
area, for example, or you can make preparations
in the form of suppositories or ovules. There
are hundreds of possible applications here. And
now to give you in what kind of diseases. The
list is huge, Eric. It's huge. So I research
the literature, scientific literature, all up
in Mondial Congresses, all the books in over
60 countries where I visited. And if you take,
it's like at least 500 diseases. If you take
just one thing, properties has about 70 useful
properties. And let's say we take only antioxidant.
or you take only anti -inflammatory, then if
you remember on the names of diseases, all diseases
which have as a word the last letters of the
disease is itis, like conjunctivitis, rhinitis,
glossitis, otitis, esophagitis, pharyngitis,
gastritis. whatever enteritis and so on, all
ITs, all from inflammations. And Propolis is
excellent as anti -inflammatory agent. Why? Because
Propolis attacks simultaneously many causes which
create inflammation. So if the inflammation is
caused like fire, like free radicals, like smoking
or heat or a burn, propolis blocks very quickly
the free radicals. There are hundreds of studies
which says that propolis is antioxidant because
it blocks the free radicals. Then many other
inflammations are given by viruses and propolis
is antiviral. Other inflammations are given by
bacteria. Propolis is antibacterial. Other are
given by fungi. propolis is anti -mycotic, anti
-fungal, or it's parasites, malaria, and so on
and so on, giardia, propolis is also anti -parasitic.
So when you have this combination of antioxidant
plus antiviral, antibacterial, anti -mycotic,
anti -parasitic, practically at least 80 % of
the inflammations you can reduce, you can eliminate
them. The only other big cause of inflammation
is trauma. When I have a trauma, a heat, bone
fracture, whatever, there are cells which are
destroyed. And then in this situation, propolis
helps also, but through other very interesting
mechanisms. When you have dead cells in a certain
area, like after bee stings, for example, there
are special cells here under the skin or in the
tissue. which needs to clean the area. They need
practically to eat the dead cells or the bacteria
as they are there. And these cells are called
macrophages and some of them are also neutrophils
or dendritic cells. But macrophages are the most
important. Now, if you give propolis to this
area, but also you... tell the patient to swallow
propolis or to inhale propolis in form of solutions
for nebulization or aerosols. Then these macrophages
get more power and then they clean faster the
area of dead cells and cleaning faster that area.
This is wonderful because the risk to get infection
there will decrease too. So the healing time
will decrease too. We can speak on propolis Eric,
one week is not finished. I can tell any of these
topics we could speak on for 10 hours and so
we'll try to, listeners, we will try to keep
things as practical as we can and we hope to
at least touch on besides honey and propolis,
royal jelly, wax, beehive air, be venom, definitely,
be bread, be pollen. Let's Dr. Stefan. Let's
jump back to honey for just a minute. How should
I use honey? Medicinally and by the way, I recently
had experience using it on a burn Why don't you
tell us about that and some other things to use
it for? Thanks again to Dr. Stefan Stangichu
in part two. We'll dive deep into treating burns
with honey, bee venom therapy, and a whole bunch
more. Until then, be sure to follow, subscribe,
and tell your friends about Bee Love Beekeeping
presented by Man Lake. And a shout out to Vita
Bee Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control
range of products includes Apistan, Apigard,
and now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic Acid
Strips. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, see
you next week.