J Vet Sci.  2001 Aug;2(2):121-124.

Therapeutic effect of bee venom in sows with hypogalactia syndrome postpartum

• Choi SH
• Kang SS

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the clincotherapeutic effect of whole bee venom in hypogalactic sows postpartum. Sows after parturition were assigned to treated and nontreated control groups. In the treated group, 22 sows were bee acupunctured once a day for 3 consecutive days. Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) for bee acupuncture were about 15 days after metamorphosis. One live bee was used to sting the acupoints known as Yang-ming (ST-18, 1.5 cm lateral to the base of the last 2 pairs of teats) and Jiao-chao (GV-1, at the indentation between the base of tail and the anus). In the control group, 20 sows were intramuscularly injected with a standard dosage of penicillin G (400,000 IU/head) once a day for 3 consecutive days. At post-treatment, 85.0% of the drug-treated control and 90.9% of the bee venomtreated group recovered from hypogalactia syndrome. The advantages of apitherapy were that the patients did not have stress because they were not restrained for a long period. The result suggested that apitherapy using bee venom is an effective treatment for sows with hypogalactia syndrome postpartum.

Keyword

Apitherapy; bee venom; hypogalactia; sow

MeSH Terms

*Acupuncture Points
Animals
Anti-Bacterial Agents/administration & dosage
Bee Venoms/administration & dosage/*therapeutic use
Body Temperature
Escherichia coli/isolation & purification
Female
Injections, Intramuscular/veterinary
Lactation Disorders/drug therapy/therapy/*veterinary
Mammary Glands, Animal/microbiology
Penicillin G/administration & dosage
Staphylococcus/isolation & purification
Streptococcus/isolation & purification
Swine
Swine Diseases/drug therapy/*therapy