There is a joke that says if you ask three beekeepers a question, you’ll get four answers. 

I have been working alongside honey bees since 2019 and received training in conventional beekeeping, natural beekeeping, and sanctuary or biodynamic beekeeping. I like to think of myself as a bee steward whose philosophy centers the health and wellbeing of the honey bee over her productivity.

Interacting with the bees can be a meditative experience cultivated over time by awareness of our corporeal and spiritual presence in the hive. Sights, sounds, and smells can tell us much about the condition of a colony prior to any physical touch. I greet the bees and ask for permission to enter their home. There is a perceptible shift – a pregnant pause. Then, the buzz softens into a gentle melody of women at work.

This is my style. Relaxed, intentional, and loving.

 in Forest Hills, Queens and created the first certification course for urban beekeeping in NYC. I am also the Vice Chair on the Board of Directors for Bee-U NYC and manage our apiary on Governors Island.

I’m open to hive consults, installs, and maintenance as well as 1:1 teaching or mentorship.

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Translation is an art as much as it is a science. There are cultural nuances that may or may not be captured when describing meaning across languages. Such is the case here. From Japanese to English, Hoshindo translates to “the way of the vibrating honey bee stinger.” 

I describe this practice as Japanese meridian api-immunotherapy. “Api” refers to the honey bee, and “immunotherapy” refers to a therapy that activates the immune system. The word “meridian” refers to channels that direct the flow of energy throughout the body. In Eastern medicine, this energy is Ki, meaning that which provides life force and bridges the gap between the physical and non-physical so that the body and mind function harmoniously. 

The Api-tapping Method and Practice of Hoshindo

Receiving Hoshindo is nothing like being stung by a honey bee. The Hoshindo practitioner applies micro-doses of live bee venom to specific sites on the body through a gentle tapping method with the stinger of the bee. The barbed stinger catches only the epidermis, the outermost layer of skin, which acts like a blotter to absorb a micro-drop of bee venom. 

In Hoshindo, disease is thought to manifest in the meridians as imbalances of Ki or life force energy. By using the barbed stinger of the honey bee, a Hoshindo practitioner activates or inhibits the flow of Ki and blood, stimulating an immune response at a specific area. Health, in Hoshindo, is seen as a dynamic balance characterized by smooth and flowing movement. When Ki and blood stagnate, illness occurs. Hoshindo aims to overcome this stagnation. In addition to bee venom, Hoshindo uses bee pollen, royal jelly, honey, and propolis -- in other words all of the natural hive medicines.

The Taoist Origins of Hoshindo and Lineage of the Americas

Many cultures have history with the honey bee and have utilized the products of the hive, including honey, bee venom, propolis, and royal jelly, for medicinal and nutritional purposes. 

Taoism, an indigenous tradition of China, emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things. By studying the stars and nature, which they believed had a special relationship, Taoists created unique practices that combined science, art, and medicine. 

For nearly 4,000 years, people in China studied the medicines of the honey bee, developing energy meridians, channels that spread life-force energy throughout the body, and tsubos, their access points. The gradual rise of high-quality bronze metallurgy during the Shang Dynasty led to the creation of acupuncture as a parallel path to apitherapy. The metal needles of acupuncture mimicked the sting of the honey bee and moxa the heat from the venom. 

1200 years ago, during the Tang Dynasty, Japan sent official missions to adopt and adapt aspects of Chinese culture. Over several hundred years, Japanese emissaries brought back 6,500 new kanji or Chinese characters, an expanded knowledge of herbs, and the studies of acupuncture and bee venom therapy. However, Mongol invasions of China during the Song Dynasty sent emissaries home, and Japan entered a period of self-isolation. This allowed for the dissemination and customizing of the practices studied in China to a burgeoning Japanese society. Thus, from Taoist origins to Chinese apitherapy, Hoshindo came to be. As such, acupuncture became Hari, and herbal medicine became Kampo.

In the mid-1990s, Voyce Durling-Jones traveled to Japan and through a series of events became the first and only westerner to study and pass the national Hoshindo board examinations. With the encouragement of her sensei, Voyce brought Hoshindo first to the Cree people in remote areas of Canada and then to the states where she practiced up until her death in 2022. 

Voyce Sensei founded the Hoshindo Healing Arts Institute and the Hoshindo Society of the Americas, both based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and began teaching Hoshindo in 2000. In 2022, Voyce Sensei appointed her students Michael Basil Webb, based in Colorado, and Lisa Bartosiewicz, based in Nevada, as senseis and Hoshindo lineage carriers in the Americas.

Hoshindo

Though bee venom has been used in traditional medicine for thousands of years, it has only begun receiving research interest and scientific validation from Western medicine over the last decade. 

Bee venom is composed mainly of water, about 88%. The remaining dry bee venom contains at least 18 active components that have individual and synergistic anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, antinociceptive, neuroprotective, and antioxidant properties. Bee venom has also been shown to alter gene expression and exhibit selective cytotoxicity, meaning the ability to kill or inhibit abnormal cells and preserve healthy cells.

Therapeutic applications of bee venom have been studied for several pervasive conditions such as breast and other cancers, HIV, treatment-resistant Lyme disease, rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, neuropathy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, liver fibrosis, COVID-19, skin disease, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, and chronic fatigue.

It is important to note that bee venom can be an allergenic substance. Full bee stings have shown pro-inflammatory and toxic properties in scientific literature due to their high doses of bee venom. Therapeutic benefit has been found in the aforementioned conditions with micro-doses of bee venom. Micro-doses of bee venom or api-tapping is the primary treatment approach in Hoshindo.

Beekeeping

There is a joke that says if you ask three beekeepers a question, you’ll get four answers.

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