Apitherapy is becoming increasingly important. While many bee products are used as drugs in some European countries, they are used as complementary treatment materials in some others. Apitherapy treatment is supported by the Ministry of Health in Turkey and doctor who have apitherapy course certificates are allowed to use bee products in their treatment. Bee products used in apitherapy are produced by beekeepers. Focusing on only honey production, beekeepers have been trying everything correct or incorrect in order to increase their honey production for economic reasons. Unless the beekeepers make their productions accurately, healthily and consciously, usage of these products for both human and animal health will bring harm rather than benefit. On the other hand, beekeepers who make their production consciously and accurately and doing the marketing accurately as well will be natural medicine producers contributing to human and animal health and will earn more at the same time. Due to these vital reasons, beekeepers must be raised awareness, informed and trained. The main aim of this project is to equip beekeepers first with the awareness of apitherapy reality and then to provide training programs about this respect for them.
Apitherapy applications, the use of bee products for human and animal health have taken their place in the field of supportive medicine in many countries. There are only more than 3000 publications about propolis in PubMed. Many studies were conducted in terms of the positive effect of propolis on Covid 19. However, when bee hives are left near asphalt, close to settlements, bees collect asphalt, paint, etc. sticky substances as propolis. Beekeepers do not use traps to collect propolis in hives. Generally, beekeepers collect the propolis, which is attached to the inside and sides of the hive, by scraping it for hive cleaning. It has been observed that products such as propolis, bee bread, honey, which contain residues such as medicine, will do more harm than good by using them in the market for apitherapy. The use of honey with chemical residues in wound healing, the use of bee and bee larvae affected by environmental pollution, the use of pollen that has lost its volatile phenological compounds due to sun drying, etc. will do more harm than good. Therefore, it is aimed in this project to train beekeepers for the production of bee products for apitherapy.