LOCAL HONEY FOR ALLERGIES
My neighbors and I just extracted honey with a beekeeper from our urban rooftop bee hive. I learned so much and took raw, local honey home to stave off seasonal allergies in myself and my dog. Have you tried local honey for seasonal allergies?
The honey bees make enough honey that sharing with us isn’t problematic. The Queen bee lives longest and guards the hive after proving herself in order to get that distinction. The lifespan for all the bees is short - months. The worker bees are all female! The males are called drones. The bees rise with the sun, fly around gathering pollen and nectar to bring home by sunset, carrying a lot of baggage and extra weight on the trip. They make and store this to feed year-round.
They cover the honeycomb in a wax to preserve it. The hexagonal shape of the comb is what they find most efficient. The taste of honey depends on which flower’s pollen the bees carried home. Pollinators are at risk from environmental factors like pesticides and climate change, but honey bees are doing okay- at least in Southern California according to our beekeeper. Bees don’t tend to sting much. In fact, they die when they sting. They may sting as a defense mechanism or by accident. Our beekeeper doesn’t get stung much. He uses a small smoker to smoke burlap when entering the hive to dull their senses and communication so they stay focused on their work while he does his. He doesn’t wear a full beekeeper ‘hazmat’ suit. Just a hat with a face and neck screen. These bees were brought from Italy ages ago, so they weren’t local to the U.S., but they now help locals with seasonal allergies.
Honey is an antioxidant good for sore throats as we know, but it has many healing properties. Honey is antibacterial and antifungal. Putting a bit of honey in your dog’s food can be advantageous for tackling seasonal allergies. It has even been shown to help with memory issues and mood. It’s good for wound care like if you accidentally trim your dog’s nails too close to the ‘quick’ and need to stop the bleeding. Always trim or grind nails with a Dremel (like this https://bit.ly/3K9cktr ) in small amounts of nail at a time to prevent pain and to help the nerve recede. Now, it’s time for a cup of tea with my personally extracted, spun and jarred local, raw honey. Cheers.