Honeybee Venom Kills Tough Breast Cancer Cells.

In 2020, Ciara Duffy and a team from the Harry Perkins Institute in Australia studied how honeybee venom and its main part, melittin, affect breast cancer cells. They tested it on lab samples of triple-negative and HER2-enriched breast cancers, two hard-to-treat types, using venom from European honeybees and compared it to bumblebee venom.

Melittin killed cancer cells in under 60 minutes by punching holes in their membranes and stopped growth signals in 20 minutes, cutting cell growth by up to 80% in some tests. When paired with chemo drug docetaxel in mice, it shrank tumors 30-50% more than either alone, with no harm to healthy cells. Bumblebee venom, lacking melittin, had no effect.