I was born in Cuba and migrated to the USA in November 1993. Nobody in my family for generations had anything to do with bees, and only when I became an adult I could know the difference between a honey bee and a wasp or any other insect. However, my passionate hobby of Apitherapy had an accidental origin and today I am better known in this field than in any field I have dealt with. I had “discovered” Apitherapy in 1974 while reading foreign apicultural literature on propolis thanks to my job in Cuba as an Information Analyst in charge of analysis/synthesis.
Until then propolis was either ignored or trashed in Cuba, and this gave me a strong motivation to write about it in a first book, El Propóleo, Un Valioso Producto Apícola (1979). Nobody in Cuba cared about the book or propolis, and there was more interest in the book by IBRA or even by Central American guerillas looking for simpler ways to heal war wounds in the mountains. But shortly later a miracle occurred: Soviet Union dramatically reduced money spent in their Cuban budget, there was a shortage of importations and veterinarians found my propolis book and began using propolis to heal animals. Shortly afterwards MD’s showed interest in using bee products for their patients, and scientific symposia and courses were organized and general interest on Apitherapy increased. Today´s Cuba is a leading country in Apitherapy.
That 1979 propolis book was followed by Los Productos de la Colmena (1988), Propóleo: El Oro Púrpura de las Abejas (1989, 1991, 2005), Investigaciones Cubanas sobre el Propóleo (1989), Apiterapia para Todos (1996, 2001), and Apiterapia 101 para Todos (2007). In 1991, I became a member of AAS, and in 1993 the International Apitherapy Healthcare and Bee Acupuncture Association (China) invited me to its Board.
My education and professional experience are unrelated to beekeeping or Apitherapy: I hold degrees from University of Havana (BSc Inf./Lib. Sc., 1977; JD, 1988), Open International University for Complementary Medicines (PhD Honoris Causa, 1990; [honor] MD/MA, 1992), and Florida International University (MSW, 2004), and have published some other books and over a hundred papers on Experimental Hypnosis, Information Science, Psychology, Judaism, and Literature. However, my passionate hobby continues to be Apitherapy and I have lectured in different countries about it. In 2005, with other three apitherapists from Spain, Portugal, and Romania, I founded Bees for Life – World Apitherapy Network (www.beesforlife.org) to use Apitherapy for assisting needy populations in emergency situations, and suggested Dr. Filip TerĒs birthday (March 30, 1844) as the “World Apitherapy Day”.
Some of my goals are to convert Apitherapy products and procedures, which are very inexpensive, into well-known ones such as aspirin, antibiotics, and Viagra are, and to outreach and teach Apitherapy to nurses, paramedics, students, doctors, lay people, and humanitarian organizations.
December, 2009