The term comes from Greek words: "apis" - a bee and "therapia" - treatment. Apitherapy that makes use of the medicinal effect of bee products, especially of propolis, floral pollen, bee-bread and royal jelly, receives wider and wider recognition among contemporary natural methods of treatment.

In Poland, apitherapy has particularly long and rich tradition. Bee products are a source for highly valuable proteins, exogenous amino acids, organic acids, enzymes, all the vitamins, bio-elements and biologically active substances, which are responsible for diverse properties of bee specimens.

Long-term pharmaceutical and clinical research and observations in the field of apitherapy have proved favourable effects of bee products in prevention and treatment of various illnesses.

There is a number of recognized medicines obtained from apial raw materials, which are produced in the form of ready pharmaceutical preparations for a therapeutic usage.

There are different types of bee products employed in apitherapy and therefore we can distinguish:

• homogeneous preparations based on only one bee product,
• compound preparations which have two or more bee products in their composition,
• mixed preparations composed from bee products and other natural ingredients and finally,
• herbal honey and honey.