Language:      

FROM BEEKEEPING AND HISTORY
TO
APITHERAPYMEDICAL CENTER

(History of some events laced with a lot of work)

Save Roșia Montană!
Save Romanian forests

       

         We often hear people saying that the events have a sense of their own. Nothing could be just pure chance. We do not discuss here the philosophical categories of chance and necessity. But on the road from beekeeping to setting up an apitherapy medical center, from a professor of history to a PhD in medical science has been a long series of events. Plus work ! How much? So much, that, when I look back, I would have by far much courage than I have now, if I has to take everything from the beginning. Neither do I, now, as I write this, really explain what my life would be if any of the events that were strung along this road would be lacking.

         The first chance was that I grew up among bees: my parents were beekeepers, like my grandparents and great-great grandparents. Their apiary was in Bălăneştii of Gorj, at the foot of the hill with the significant title: Prisăci = Apiary (archaism which, again, would be called Hill of Apiaries). This place offers a honey bee flora of a rare diversity and abundance. Once, about 20 years ago, it happened I have the opportunity to send to a laboratory in Germany some polyfloral honey harvested from the hives located on this hill. The analysis reports that the lab sent me, struck me: in the the structure of the honey there was the nectar coming from a number of 76 different bee plants! It happened that I have the patience and curiosity - to study the medicinal potential of each plant. It was amazing to see in how many diseases could beneficially intervene one teaspoon of honey! Moreover, the soil contains more calcium (here the wine is strong!) and selenium-trace element, antitumoral and antioxidant, a remarkable fact, since without it the vitamin E (vitamin of fertility and longevity) is useless given !

         Therefore, I do not know any case of infertility among the locals, no case of cancer and people enjoy longevity: deaths under the age of 85 years are rare; within one kilometer of the village live four people who have "jumped" one hundred years! Interestingly, although the drinking water contains more calcium, the locals born in the resident family do not have kidney stones, as I noticed it happens to many of those who came here more recently. It is, I think, an example of adaptation of the human body over the centuries, to the site conditions. Not less true is that the wine that locals love more especially, and which nobody counterfeit, as it does with the wine of the luxury labelled bottles, has a role in regulating the acidity necessary to the metabolism of this precious mineral in the body.

         If, these days, many children and young people wake up in the morning not knowing what to do with their day, especially if they "did not caught" any reading taste or interest for something to occupy usefully their day, they easy take on roads which become clogged in worse. In the childhood of my age, the children knew well the night before, what they will do tomorrow. The chance led me to a teacher, Drăgănescu Grigore, who not only discerned us the mystery of letters, black sheep in white field, as he said - but he also taught us how to graze it ! He learnt in bad times, fled to Moldova in the WWI. He gave us books of his house but he also investigated us to see if we read and if that increased our understanding of the world. Another chance was that our commune had then a library with a lot of books. How many communes in today's Romania have libraries any longer ? There was also a librarian with the program for eight hours, which happened to like what she did. Also incidentally, that library was near our house. You could read anything and it was not uncommon to see the children of the village boasting with the record number of books written on their loan list. When did they read? Anytime, with the cattle on the hills or when they  got rid of stuff in the household. All children, but absolutely all, worked in the household according to their own powers. Many of them, wherever they went, they had a book. Since then I made the habit that wherever I go, I have a book with me. I remember, for example, how useful were the long and boring job sessions for making reading. Or the pastoral mountain days with the apiary. Finally, every opportunity was good to read. I was fortunate to be part of the generation that based its culture on reading, radically different to the generations whose culture is summed up in the templates offered by television or computer, rather poor and skinny - you take what you are given, missing filter and your own involvement.

         After primary and general school, whose courses I followed in my native village, between 1962-1966 I was a student of Tudor  Vladimirescu High School in Targu Jiu. In the years 1966-1971 I attended the Faculty of History Alexandru Ioan Cuza of the University of Iasi. Growing among hives, helping my parents with beekeeping typical works, when I graduated from the college, with no one to take the apiary, I responded to the call - maybe a little too sentimental - not to interrupt a traditional occupation as old in the family, which determined me to go home. It was, this fact, too, another chance

Apiary on Prisăci (Apiaries) Hill		Polyfloral honey of Bălănești
Bees at work		And what gentle they are!
Queen between subjects		In the shadow of seabuckthorn in the garden

         Between 1971 - 2000 I was a high school history teacher in Targu-Jiu. There followed 30 years of teaching and the same seniority as a beekeeper and autodidact in the study of the therapeutic effects of the bee products. The summer pastoral to the mountain flora meant for us work, but in the sametime, a time to keep reading! For almost two months, together with the children, we have became mountaineers

Mount is a place flowing with

honey (apiary on Gilort)		and milk (alpine edge)

         Sometimes we go to look for hearths of apiary, to Obârşia Lotrului. Sometimes the torrential floods blocked with debris or tree trunks brought or overturned by the storm. Not always was I able to cross, not even with the "Russian" (Lada Niva), the chainsaw, ax and shovel, tools which always accompanied me. Always under the driver's seat there was a pan like the ones for pancakes and a bottle of oil. Sometimes the bread became just as fluffy, as the rock of the mountain.

Lunch on Niva’s hood		and water from the depths of the mountain

And when night comes and the road is blocked,

you park out in a place away from flood,		you earn your food by the sweat of your brow from the waves of Gilort
you prepare a dinner with no pretensions		and if rarely appears someone, so you have a man to share the meals and words with

         Meanwhile, the inclination towards the companionship of the books occasioned me the publication of articles and studies, becoming employee of publications like Litu, Column, History Journal, Journal of Pedagogy, Gorjeanul, etc.. When "the times" made ​​it possible I have also published two books of history: "Between one kingdom and two empires.1526-1699", with the Point Publishing House, Tg-Jiu, 1996 and “Chrestomathy of Gorj History" with the Point Publishing House, Tg-Jiu, 1998.

         Taking the apiary – the beekeeping activities were happily interlaced with the educational ones and with sitting at the writing-desk, I wanted to know better not only the colony of bees, but also the means of higher operating and capitalizing the hive products. Without any exaggeration, I read everything that was written in Romania and supplied me from other countries, too, studies and books related to the beekeeping and apitherapy. Of course, I benefited greatly, too, of the experience empirically achieved by many generations of my ancestors. The people of the village from more distant places came and asked to my grandmother and mother hive products for different therapeutic powers. Amazed by the unmatched therapeutic power of the products of the hive, honey, caps of alveoli in honey combs, wax, apilarnil, propolis, royal jelly, pollen, bee bread and venom, I began to study their effects, especially the effects of their combinations, in different concentrations, to treat some diseases becoming worse.

         But on the way to the apitherapeutist formation, a chance, too, had a major role. I left, by July 1989, to take a shipment of packaged honey that I would sell on Transfăgărăşan at the quota of 2000. It happened to leave home without a book, and there was plenty of time up there! In Curtea de Argeș, on the street that leads into the famous monastery of Master Manole, along which passes the road towards the mountains, I stopped at a bookstore and bought two books printed in Apimondia Publishing House. In these books I find out studies about the pharmacokinetic value of the hive products. Reading them was the first step towards the scientific knowledge of the apitherapy. It occurred, these times, too, another event: a disease of a family member who was unable to be cured after long allopathic treatments, following the conventional medical ways. With all I knew at that time I did some combinations of bee products, employing other adjuvants, too: herbal extracts, fruits, grains, minerals. It got to a point where the only way to intervene in this condition was the surgery. But after 75 days - due to what I call today apitherapy, a new review of the case found the complete remission. This was when the crossroads appeared. I put in a drawer the already summarized materials for another history book and I started a long work by himself.

         Accustomed to orderly research, I summarized all the time, comparatively, the observations on the therapeutic effects of different bee products and honey bee products which I scientifically had designed according to the substances necessary to the therapeutic target pursued.

         Meanwhile, I became a contributor to some publications with concerns in this area, I participated with personal papers at various symposia or conferences. The experience I gained was also materialized by the publication of some studies and two books of apitherapy "Apitherapy’s ABC " in 1995, Point Publishing House, Tg-Jiu, and "209 Recipes of Honey Bee Products", 1999, Nipexim Publishing House, Tg-Jiu. As a self-taught, I learned molecular biology, medical biochemistry, physiology, nutrition, immunology, allergy, etc..

         Following the publication of the books and some studies and articles, from 2001 I was invited to teach the course of apitherapy organized by ANATECOR. It was the first course taught in Romania on the apitherapy, to which, in order to formalize my concerns, I joined as a student, achieving this way the degree of specialization. In 2003 I was granted with the rank of lecturer for the apitherapy.

         To trust by a university medical title the apitherapy ability to heal a wide range of conditions, as a result of the studies made in 2004-2006, I obtained a Masters Degree in Health Sciences, Section of Techniques of Cell Biology in Diagnosis of Diseases with the dissertation "Apitherapy in Family Planning". Following the concerns and published studies on the honey bee products biochemistry and their influence on the human body at the molecular and cellular level, in 2004 I became a member of the Romanian Society for Cell Biology, Iaşi Branch.

         Gradually, the apitherapy gained ground in Romania, too, officially becoming a medical competence.

         As I was used to study, in 2008-2012 I became doctoral student in Medical Sciences of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Gr T. Popa" of Iași  During the doctoral studies, I was a lecturer in 2008-2009 - in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology - for the course of clinic apitherapy, followed by doctors and pharmacists, and during the years 2010 - 2011 for the course “Fundamental Bases of Apitherapy and Clinic Apitherapy”. In February 2012 I received a title of Ph.D. in medical sciences, supporting the thesis of "Apitherapic Rebalancing of Plasma Proteins. Its importance in Treating Inherited or Acquired Autoimmune Diseases". This thesis is the result of demonstrating scientifically the potential of honey bee products to interfere beneficially in treating the autoimmune diseases, which are a superior alternative to allopathic, conventional medication..

         In all these years, I have built the Apitherapy Medical Center in the commune Bălănești, on the hill with predestined name - Prisăci (Apiaries). How have I chosed this place? The honey flora, of a rare variety, had a role in the choice. First, however, it is the place where lived our parents and our ancestors. Everyone must be tied to a place, to be from somewhere. On the monument of the heroes of war which prepared the Great Union of 1918 is inscribed the name of our grandfather, my mother's father. From this place he went to give his life for the great dream of the Romanians, and we stayed here to give life to the place. And to honor him by what we do. The hero father brought from Prague the village church bells. We hear often these bells, especially when we work among the hives, but their sound is also heard from the cabinets Apiregia Imunostim, a part of Apitherapy Medical Center. Then we know that we are where we should be!

The beginnings were not easy

The work has began like this		then, it showed like this
And when it was ready,		I first brought the books

I arranged the study room of Apitherapy Medical Research

where casuistry is classified pre- and post-apitherapy		Entrance in the inner courtyard in the waiting room of the cabinets

I prepared the waiting room		Images of the cabinets Apiregia Imunostim

I built the laboratories building to produce honey bee products		Images of the laboratories

I arranged the Pharmacy

   

         I also "built" a successor: my son, Călin Vasile Andriţoiu. In fact, as a specialist in apitherapy, he has build by himself, by serious studies at both fundamental and clinical levels. Beyond the parental pride, which I do not try to hide, his efforts have been recognized and confirmed by four masters and a doctorate in medical sciences and over a year due to post-doctoral studies, he will receive the title of docent. He attended the Faculty of Medicine and the first master in medical science, due to his concerns for studying the apitherapy and other complementary therapies, resulted in his dissertation "Biostimulating the Body with Natural Products and Complementary Therapy Techniques". Then he was awarded the title of PhD in Medical Sciences, the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Gr T. Popa" of Iași with the thesis" Effects of Apitherapy Products on Pathophysiological Mechanisms of Liver Cirrhosis". The honey bee products used to treat experimentally the rats to whom was induced the cirrhosis during the research, were produced exclusively by the laboratories within Apitherapy Medical Center. Now, postdoctoral, as a docent applicant, he study the biochemistry of the bee polymers.

         In the high school I was his teacher and tutor. Then - because it was the will of the bee, the destinies shifter - I was his lecturer for the course of apitherapy. He has now become my collaborator, especially in studying the effects of the honey bee products we produce, particularly in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology diseases. For several years we sign collaborative studies and participate together, sometimes with joint studies, to the conferences on apitherapy topics. We have developed a number of collaborative works, including two books published in partnership in 2010. He continues to paint, he had personal exhibitions, he participate in the annual exhibitions of painters-doctors and he is still learning.

Imagini din biobaza		Apitherapy Medical Center

 

2010: participating together at		the International Conference on Complementary Therapies

2010: we signed together two books on apitherapy, honey bee products and principles of their intervention at the molecular-cellular level in human diseases.

         Within Apitherapy Medical Center, in order to be able to continue the researches at a fundamental level, we have set up a biobase. The effects of different honey bee products we produce, before being recommended to the patients, are first studied as concern the effectiveness and safety of various diseases caused to the mice in the biobase

Images of the biobase		Apitherapy Medical Center

         And now, from the times when he was a child, Călin remembers the pastoral summers in the mountains of Gilort. During the day he read lying on a blanket in the sun or in the shade of a fir tree, when he has not helped to the work with the apiary or was not busy throwing stones exactly at the places where his brother, Radu, gave the rod over for trouts in the waves of Gilort . In the evening he began playing with Bomby, the  puppy about which he can tell a lot of stories now, too. When the evening breeze blew, both children wrapped in the blankets near a bonfire, listening to stories, told in turn their own and counted the planes crossing the sky with their flickering lights, waiting for the moonrise from behind the sharp ridges of  Tărtărau. Then, in the astral light of the moon, the stones in the mountain pastures of Seaca seemed to be white, like scattered sheep while grazing. The fir trees murmured the mysteries of an old forest, chanted by the male wave of Gilort, crushed here and there by the rocks on which it threw with anger its splashes silver-sprayed by the moon. We, lonely apiarists, lost in the meadow among mountain ridges, amazed by so much splendor, we found no words for other stories.

         How it would look these mountains poisoned by cyanide like in Rosia Montana, or with the forests stripped by chainsaws, as happens everywhere ? Go the straight fir trees to the foreign countries, because the crooked-hearted, greedy and stupid men be able to wander their fraudulent lards in luxury cars they have spent no more for than a signature approving the massacre made in the forests by the chainsaws. From which caves alien to honor and shame did they appear ? If the national wealth would not be robbed by unworthy conspiracy, fewer Romanian would have died in that train in Spain. Or maybe none.

         The children and the bees can live only in a clean country. Such thoughts occur in a scientific paper? Maybe yes, because the bee is life, and life gives life.

         The Hill Prisăci (Apiaries), even in the vicinity of our apiaries and Apitherapy Medical Center, still carries a treasure of the past millennia. It's Apifera Ophris orchid, which is endangered. It's a rare orchid, a symbol of natural mimicry results. Centuries after centuries coexisting in the same ecosystem, the flowers of this orchid came to imitate the bee forms. If you do not look closely, the flowers of this orchid called by the locals “the little bee” seem to be bees started to gather the nectar from the hay land.

Ophris Apifera of Bălănești – a symbol of the  inimitable creation of nature

                                      

All the above are also:

• a hymn to masterfully nature, the most valuable asset we have to send untainted to our successors;
• a call to save Roșia Montană threatened by cyanides with eternal death;
• a call to save the forests from the hideous greed of those who approve their deforestation.
  

I do not know if my grandson, Mihnea Ștefan Andrițoiu, will inherit the beekeeping and apitherapy

but to him and to all our children and grandchildren we have the duty to leave a clean country in which to live, where they can grow their successors without the fear of the cyanides and other killing agents. The death is brought by the fans of commissions for whom the country is just the place to do fortunes stolen from our descendants, and which they already spend in other parts of the world.

Only together we can stop them. Romania is not ours. We are only storing a legacy. The land belongs to our children and grandchildren. And the Apuseni Mountains are in the country.

It’s not enough to cry: God protects the Romanian people! Understanding the deadly danger, we have to unite ourselves,  because only by ourselves we can protect ourselves.

God helps only those who help themselves!

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