Local Honey helps allergies?

[OakLeaf]

Never tried it on a sustained basis, but I have to think Blueberry's right - the pollens that are prime allergens are obviously windborne, so the plants don't need to have flowers that are attractive to bees. I don't think I've ever seen a honeybee on a ragweed, grass, pine, oak, maple or plantain flower.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I do know that honeybees visit flowering maple trees for pollen and nectar.
I keep a hive of bees in my backyard, and I plan to multiply them to several hives next year.

Regardless of whether eating local honey can help your allergies or not, there is a different and very compelling reason to buy local honey from an apiary near you-

Honey import laws are somewhat lax and purity inspections are way too few. China exports HUGE quantities of honey to the US, for resale after re-bottling into various labels and brands. Chinese honey has regularly been found to be impure- with corn syrup and sugar syrup filler added, and with higher levels of chemicals and pesticide than US honey. But it's SUPER CHEAP, and importers and distributors are very anxious to sell it for big profit.
They know some people avoid Chinese food products, and the way they get around this is to import Chinese honey into other countries as a stopover, like Argentina or Chile for instance. It's heated and bottled (heating destroys many of honey's health benefits and nutrients) Then the honey gets labeled as "Product of Argentina", etc, and resold in US supermarkets. U.S. beekeepers are trying now to get better laws passed regarding testing for honey purity.

Our US honey bee industry is in big trouble right now. Perhaps you've all heard of Colony Collapse Disease (CCD)- well they are still trying to ascertain the exact cause of this awful killer of many thousands of hive every year. In the end it may actually be caused by a whole series of stresses on the bees- new fungal and intestinal diseases, American and European foulbrood disease, treatment resistant tracheal and varroa mites, the Small Hive Beetle, environnmental pesticide misuse, genetically altered crops, you name it, all taking a terrible toll on our nation's honeybees. Many of these diseases and pests did not exist here in the U.S 20 years ago. Over the last two years the the entire population of America's honeybees has dropped by 1/3.

One thing every person can do to help is to avoid buying supermarket honey and instead seek out a local food market, co-op, health food store or farm stand somewhere near where you live and ask for locally produced honey, or ask where you can find some. Beekeepers are everywhere, even in the cities, working quietly on their rooftops!
The honey you buy from a local beekeeper will likely be way purer and healthier than any honey you can buy cheaply in the supermarket. Plus you'll be supporting local food production, being kinder to our planet, and helping your nearby beekeeper stay in business and multiply their hive numbers!
The other thing we can all do is to think twice before applying pesticides and herbicides to our lawns and gardens- these poisons DO harm honeybees and other benign insects like butterflies and moths in many ways we may not be aware of. We need insects in our world. An insect free planet will be a dead planet.

Pure carefully extracted and bottled honey is a beautiful thing. It's very healthful to eat and is worth every dollar you pay for it. Find out where your local beekeeps sell their beautiful honey!

[OakLeaf]

Hear, hear! And the variations in flavor from season to season, apiary to apiary, are wonderful. Never get that from supermarket honey.

[colby]

My husband started doing this on the advice of a lady we work with. I guess the catch is, as someone else stated, that you can't guarantee the bees will have pollen for what you are allergic to, and that that may change over time (so if you're allergic to summer plants, you may have to get spring/summer honey, which kind of sucks, because you have to wait).

For both of them, a teaspoon definitely caused the sniffles and an allergic response. Slowly eating the honey every day, and increasing to 2 teaspoons a day, made their tolerance to the same honey less severe. It also increased my husband's tolerance to beer made with semi-local (regionally local anyway) hops. The lady I work with says it definitely made a difference to her allergies, but had to start out small.

So, as with all things, it seems to be a YMMV

[zoom-zoom]

Lisa, that's a great PSA! We are very lucky here to have so many orchards, so our local stores stock mainly local (ie from our state) honey--at least that's what's in the massive jars we seem to go through at the rate of 1/month (we have an 8 year old boy who could live on PB & honey sammiches).

Also great advice about pesticides. When we can get things to grow in our yard (we have some serious deep shade), we like to go with things that are hardy and not attractive to bugs. Deer are another story. But those can be "repelled" with some natural, smelly sprays, too.

[Blueberry]

Thanks for the reminder on local honey. We definitely buy and enjoy local honey (we even try to bribe them to give us the honey from the hives that pollinate the strawberry fields...). It's fabulous We do tend to seek out local honey from places we visit too (we bring jars home...) But allergies - I'm not sure...

[sarahspins]

I think how much/if it helps really has to do with what your specific allergies are and how bad they are... in my case local honey doesn't seem to provide any benefit for me (well, apart from knowing where it comes from!), but I will freely admit that I don't indulge in a tablespoon a day either.. it's too expensive and that's a lot of simple carbs at once.

There are some people who keep bees (one hive) not far from me and I always want to stop and ask them about it.. it's always something that has fascinated me, but i'm sure like a lot of things it's probably more work/hassle than it seems on the surface

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

There are some people who keep bees (one hive) not far from me and I always want to stop and ask them about it.. it's always something that has fascinated me, but i'm sure like a lot of things it's probably more work/hassle than it seems on the surface

Keeping a handful of hives is not that time consuming, since you are usually only going into the hives once every 2 weeks or so to do various things. And healthy bees can take care of themselves for long stretches of time.
The work/effort part of it is fun, and never a hassle if you enjoy your bees. In fact, it's sometimes difficult to back off and quit fussing so much with them, because working with the bees is pretty relaxing... smells so good, soothing humming effect, fun to watch them, etc. Unless of course they are having a bad hair day, in which case you are smart to leave them in peace and pick another day to do your hive chores.