Am J Chin Med. 2003 ; 31(1): 149-55.

Effect of bee venom treatment in sows with oligogalactic syndrome postpartum.

Choi SH, Kang SS, Bae CS, Cho SK, Pak SC.

College of Veterinary Medicine and Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 361-763, Korea. shchoi@cbucc.chungbuk.ac.kr

The objective of this study was to determine the clinico-therapeutic effect of worker honeybee venom in sows with oligogalactic syndrome postpartum. Comparison between bee venom- and drug-treated groups was our main concern in the present study. Sows after parturition were assigned to bee venom- and drug-treated groups, respectively. In the bee venom-treated group, 22 sows were bee-acupunctured once a day for 3 consecutive days. Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) forbee acupuncture were about 15 days old after metamorphosis. Live bees were used to sting the acupoints known as yang-ming (ST-18, 1.5 cm lateral to the base of the last two pairs of teats) and jiao-chao (GV- , at the indentation between the base of tail and the anus). In the drug-treated group, 20 sows were intramuscularly injected with a standard dose of penicillin G (400,000 IU/head) once a day for 3 consecutive days. On post-treatment day 4, 85.0% of the drug-treated group and 90.9% of the bee venom-treated group recovered from oligogalactic syndrome postpartum. The result suggested that apitherapy using worker honeybee is an effective treatment for sows with oligogalactic syndrome postpartum.