Apitherapy in Indiana

Your Green Valley: Bees for better health

Tribune Star, 4/4/2017
   
Shellie Kemerly of Brownsburg has been a beekeeper for 21 years. She ranges from having anywhere from 150 to 180 hives. Throughout life, she has suffered various ailments that have prevented her from living life to the fullest, from asthma to migraines. “I had migraines seven days a week. I was throwing up, and wanted to be put in the dark, and for people to shut up and not say a word to me,” Kemerly explained. That was until Roger Graham of Graham’s Bee Works of Morgantown suggested she use her bees for better health.

At the annual Indiana Beekeeping Conference, Kemerly spoke of her experience to a room of about 50 eager attendees on the topic of Apitherapy. Graham encouraged Kemerly to start using the venom from her bees to help with her headaches. “Roger started showing me my trigger points so I could start working on myself. We went home, started getting bees out of the hive and started working on myself. I would say within two weeks my headaches just quit. I have not had a migraine in eight to 10 years, and I had them every day,” Kemerly said.

Headaches were not the only thing bee venom helped Kemerly with. She also suffered from asthma. She recalled her mother putting her in the shower when she was a child to help her breathe better. Then she met Jim Higgens of Hillsboro, Ohio, known as “Dr. Sting.” At one of his meetings, he put his hand in a box full of bees, grabbed one out at a time and began to sting Kemerly. Her asthma went away and she only relapsed once after exposure to black mold.