Bee acids. Apitherapy is a branch of alternative medicine that uses honey bee products, including raw honey, royal jelly, pollen, propolis, beeswax and apitoxin (Bee venom). The claim that apitherapy treats cancer, which some proponents of apitherapy make, remains unsupported by evidence-based medicine. The painful stings of bees are mostly associated with the poison gland and the Dufour's gland which are abdominal exocrine glands containing various chemicals. In "Lasioglossum leucozonium", the Dufour's Gland mostly contains octadecanolide as well as some eicosanolide. There is also evidence of n-triscosane, n-heptacosane, and 22-docosanolide. However, the secretions of these glands could also be used for
Evolution of snake venom splicing. The Elapid snake "Bungarus fasciatus", for example, possesses a gene that is alternatively spliced to yield both a venom component and a physiological protein. Further diversification may have occurred by gene loss of specific venom components. For instance, the rattlesnake ancestor is believed to have had genes for neurotoxic PLA2 toxins, which are absent in modern non-neurotoxic "Crotalus" species. The various recruitment events had resulted in snake venom evolving into a very complex mixture of proteins. The venom of rattlesnakes, for example, includes nearly 40 different proteins from different protein families, and other snake venoms have been found to