Bee venom is being investigated for its potential to protect against infectious disease and may hold the key to the treatment of a range of medical conditions including cancers.

Bee venom is made up of a complex composition of proteins which give it its potency and unique therapeutic qualities. Bee venom of the required quality is a high value ingredient for use in therapeutic and cosmetic products.

At ChemCentre a multidisciplinary team led by scientist Ken Dods has embarked on a six-year research and development project to investigate how to optimise the harvest of bee venom and develop a consistent and certified ingredient product. For the first stage of the project, research specialists Dr Daniela Scaccabarozzi, Dr Joel Gummer and Dr Thao Le were linked with beekeepers Dr Tristan Campbell and Ben Pan Wafujian to investigate how environmental factors might influence the harvest of bee venom.

While previous studies have explored the impacts of biological factors, such as bee behaviour, age, and diet influencing bee venom protein composition and amount, little research has been conducted into the causes of bee venom variation due to environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and flowering season on the volume and potency of bee venom harvested.

But how do you harvest bee venom without harming the bee? And what are the optimal conditions to ensure maximum yield and potency of this much-prized product?

For this study, bee venom samples were collected and analysed from 25 bee colonies located between Chittering and Harvey. Samples were collected twice during the Marri flowering season of January to March. While nectar volume and texture visibly change across the flowering season, the impact of this variation on bee venom was unknown.

To collect the bee venom, researchers applied a low voltage electrical stimulating device to trigger the bees to respond by stinging a glass slide surface inserted into the hive. The stinging response was non-lethal and the bees remained active and alive. For the project, one gram of venom was collected from across 20 hives over a period of 60 minutes. This was significantly faster than the anticipated timeframe of 100 minutes based on previous studies.

“The analysis revealed an astounding 99 different proteins in these samples, compared to 30 individual proteins previously identified in studies to date.” said Dr Gummer. It was also found that those bees which reacted with more intensity in their stinging action, produced a far more complex venom composition than samples from less stimulated or less aggressive bees.”

“It’s a very exciting and complex discovery and it will be interesting to fully characterise these proteins and how they work together,” said Dr Scaccabarozzi, lead author of the group’s paper on the study published recently in the journal PLOS ONE.

According to Mr Dods, the study is significant because we can now use our results to inform future bee venom harvests of the optimal environmental conditions for maximum yield and potency.

“In this way we can assist the bee industry in Australia to more effectively harvest and create product from an underutilised and significant apiary resource,” Mr Dods said.

“This means we can begin a process of standardisation across the industry and create a potentially lucrative alternative revenue stream for apiarists and deliver ingredients with wider benefits for human health.”

This research has been funded by the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre and ChemCentre, with support from natural healthcare producer and industry partner Australian Natural Biotechnology.

Read the journal article on the study in full here.

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