Viktor Vasilevich, a sharp eyed septuagenarian dressed in a white lab coat, is holding a bee between a pair of tweezers with one hand, as he gropes for the right spot on the abdomen of a massive, half naked young man with the other.
The patient is a bit annoyed by the two or three other winged specimens that buzz overhead, but Vasilevich doesn't so much as flinch. "Ouch!" cries the young man.
"That makes 19," says Viktor. The giant man then gets dressed and exits the first story flat on the edge of Kyiv, which serves as a temporary clinic.
Although Viktor is not a certified doctor, he is no ordinary folk healer either. Originally from Russia, he has been treating people with bee venom for forty years. The practice itself can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia.
In Russia, it survived in villages and is currently enjoying a renaissance, even spreading to places like Germany.
"God created man and then he created bees so that man would be healthy," Viktor emphasizes, somewhat dramatically. The approach resembles acupuncture, only bees are used instead of needles.
Viktor, who is an engineer by training, learned apiculture, or bee keeping, as a boy. His grandfather, who was a medical professor, taught him bee therapy. Viktor first worked as a nurse and then he took courses in reflex therapy. He started off treating people with ulcers and became interested in the deeper causes underlying illnesses.
Serhiy Fedorenko is also crazy about bees and swears by their healing powers, but he just raises them, sometimes selling the honey and other useful products that the insects produce.
It can take up to 10 years to become a professional beekeeper, Serhiy says, noting that real beekeepers don't disturb the bees' busy work routine but instead become an unobtrusive part of it.
Up until the 19th century, a honey hunter would just climb a tree and cut out pieces of the nest or a side of the tree itself. In Ukraine, Petro Prokopovych is honored as the first one to introduce the hive and true bee keeping.
From the earliest days of Kievan Rus, Ukraine was known for its export of wax and honey. Today it is the fourth largest producer of 'the nectar of the gods', after China, Argentina and the US. Ukraine also exports the bees themselves, which, among, other things, are used to improve agriculture yields.
There are two main breeds of bees in Ukraine: the Carpathian and Kyiv steppe bees. According to Viktor and Serhiy, both are known to be hardworking and relatively friendly. Russian bees, on the other hand, are said to be bigger and more aggressive, while Caucasian bees are infamous for thieving from other hives.
Bees in general are incredibly complex creatures: They have two stomachs and 21,000 glands, which they use to process honey, wax and queen-bee milk oe royal jelly thought to relieve radiation overdoses, male impotency and aging.
According to the latest scientific data, bees can fly 14 km in search of nectar, which they take back to the hive and place in a honeycomb. Then they beat their wings for hours in order to achieve just the right level of moisture. The honeycomb is made of wax. Every 100 grams of wax contains 4 kilograms of honey.
It takes two weeks to make honey. One kilo requires the processing of five kilos of nectar. For bees, honey is a source of food that can be stored for future consumption. Pollen, which bees collect to feed their young, is also valued by beekeepers. Then there is bee glue, a kind of antiseptic for the hive, which the ancient Egyptians used in the mummification process. And of course there is the venom from the bee's stinger.
"Any bite is useful," says Serhiy, as long as you don't have an allergy. Viktor says he does a test sting on a harmless part of a patient's body before beginning treatment. He also keeps a special antidote on hand, just in case.
"I used to swell up when I got stung, but now my body has gotten used to it," says Serhiy, who can be 'bitten' a dozen or more times during the course of a day with his bees.
Serhiy spends around two days a week tending to his 25 hives. He can sell a large jar of honey for Hr 70 to acquaintances or regular customers. Products like royal jelly and venom can fetch an even higher price - especially abroad. For example, a gram of venom sells for around $300 in Germany, but in Ukraine it costs only $10.00.
Viktor keeps twice as many hives as Serhiy does. He has to, because a bee, whose intestines are attached directly to its stinger, dies shortly after stinging someone. During the treatment session described above, the 70-year-old healer just kept pulling the bees out of a wooden box and then discarding their carcuses into a bin.
Bees, however, are used to a tough existence. The queen bee mates just once in a lifetime, the only time she gets to leave the nest in the 5-7 years that she lives. The males, whose sole purpose for existing is to get her pregnant, make up just one to two percent of a family. During sex, he loses his penis and dies early as well. Worker bees, which are all female, live around a month on average and are always busy. It takes up to three weeks for an egg to mature. If a new queen is needed, the worker bees give special care to one of the eggs, from which the new queen will hatch. Every hive or nest needs one and no more than one queen.
Tanya, a 31 year old who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nine years ago, has also not had an easy life. She has been undergoing bee venom therapy for half a year and says the effects of the incurable disease have already stabilized. "I am gradually getting better." Before turning to bee sting therapy, doctors prescribed her all kinds of hormones and other medicines, which were ineffective and expensive. "The way they were treating me, I felt like I was getting worse and worse." In the last six months, Tanya has been stung about 500 times. Patients gradually take more and more stings during each successive treatment session.
Most of Viktor's patients are "people who have been disappointed with traditional cures." They learn about him through word of mouth. Back pains are the most common illness associated with bee therapy in Russia and Ukraine, but Viktor insists that all illnesses are one way or the other connected to the nervous or circulatory systems and that bee-venom therapy can cure 80% of them.
So how long does it take to become a bee doctor? "You can't learn it quickly," replies Viktor, who recalls that in his hometown of Melitopol adverts offering bee therapy are posted everywhere. Many start learning the trade and then quit. But if they're just out to earn a buck they'll go into practice anyway.
Viktor recommends study at a medical institute, then a course in reflex therapy to learn the pressure points. Of course "experience is the most important thing here," he points out, "A good therapist has to know the bees as well as the human body."
Like Serhiy, Viktor is aware of other bee cures. For example, he does a massage with honey and prescribes dried bee carcasses made into a mash with sugar added.
"It's a lot easier to just sit in an office and write prescriptions for people," says the bee healer, referring to ordinary doctors.
And how much does Viktor get paid for his services? "I don't make a lot of money," he says. "If I don't cure them,
I don't take their money at all." In general, he charges people what they can afford and often nothing at all. Also, when a patient has gone through the process, Viktor sends him for tests to make sure the illness has been cured.
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