honeycomb (two), harvested from the bee hives in our orchard,
October 2008, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
It just dawned on me. My late summer, early fall allergies never transpired. They usually start in August and stick with me until the first freeze. But this year, not an itch in my eyes nor a drip from my nose. How did I manage that?
The culprit is ragweed, a ubiquitious plant in the Rio Grande Valley. Could be that there’s less of the noxious weed here, in our new place, than in our old ‘hood. Ragweed grew like mad up and down the road and on the ditchbank behind our former residence, but it’s not exactly absent around these parts. After all, we only moved about two miles away.
I’m beginning to think it must be the honey. For a couple of years now, I’ve been consuming local honey—that is, honey collected from bee hives within about a five-mile radius of our home. The latest blast of honey came directly from the bee hives in our orchard. Dr. Moses, keeper of those hives, pulled out an entire honeycomb and handed it over as a special treat. It lasted exactly ten days. We ate honey by the spoonfuls, and we even ate most of the soft edible beeswax that made up the comb itself.
According to Tom Ogren, author of several books on allergies and how to prevent them, honey contains bits and pieces of pollen from the plants that surround the bee hive. As honey bees zip from plant to plant, they carry with them the pollen from those plants and deposit it into the honeycomb. When we eat that honey, the pollen acts as an immune booster, especially when taken in small amounts consistently over time prior to the onset of the allergy season.
It may seem odd that straight exposure to pollen often triggers allergies but that exposure to pollen in the honey usually has the opposite effect. But this is typically what we see. In honey the allergens are delivered in small, manageable doses and the effect over time is very much like that from undergoing a whole series of allergy immunology injections. The major difference though is that the honey is a lot easier to take and it is certainly a lot less expensive. I am always surprised that this powerful health benefit of local honey is not more widely understood, as it is simple, easy, and often surprisingly effective.
~Tom Ogren
Allergies run in our family. Before he succumbed to a battery of allergy shots taken over many years, Dad always carried with him a sinus inhaler, a small white tube that fit into the nostril. I cringed in church whenever I saw him pull out the tube and then watch it disappear up his nose. That was the height of embarrassment for a kid aged 8-11, before I learned about all the other things my parents did that would eventually embarrass me.
My own allergies made their first appearance when I was 17. I worked as a hostess at a famous restaurant in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley. One night my allergies got so bad that I crouched behind the reception counter, sopping up the drips from my nose with a cloth napkin. I couldn’t find a box of tissues, and I was wearing a spaghetti strap dress, else I would have used my sleeve. I could hardly move from behind the counter given that my nose and eyes were running profusely. I finally had to go home.
It’s been a blessing not worrying about allergies this year. Usually I buy over-the-counter Claritin and take a dose on the worst days when my allergies hit. But this year I’m letting the honey do its magic.
I feel like someone who’s stumbled upon the best-kept secret in the world. What could be better than honey as preventitive medicine? It’s relatively inexpensive compared to Claritin and/or allergy shots, plus it tastes fabulous!
I just wish honey worked for the flu, too. Alas, I don’t think it’s that powerful. But, the good news is, I already got my flu shot—a week ago today—and even though it made me feel achy and sick for two days, I’m now ready for the onslaught of germs that always descend on our family when the weather gets cold.
Here’s to clear lungs, drip-free noses, and strong stomachs all winter long! And to the bees!
The honey is rather like a homeopathic treatment. I little bit will help; a lot will make you sick.
We get honey from the local farmers’ market, too. I always splurged because of the taste, but now that I have a health reason too, I can go hog wild. Yum!
I can only imagine how perfect it must be to have a honeycomb from your very own hives. I love chewing on that waxy stuff, too, but I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone else who enjoyed it. It’s a great replacement for boring chewing gum.
And I can’t believe you wrote about those sinus inhalers – a flush of memories comes to mind. Not only did my Dad also use those things in church. To my mortal embarrassment, he also would stick it halfway inside my nostrils – under vehement protest and head shaking. I hated those #$@%* things!
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To my mortal embarrassment, he also would stick it halfway inside my nostrils…
LOL! Isn’t that kind of a health hazard? I mean, germs are passed through the nasal passages, no? Ha!
I wonder if those sinus inhalers were addicting. My dad went through so many, and they really just seemed like a blast of Vick’s Mentolatem (sp?), if you ask me. I don’t think they had any real health benefit. But I guess if your nose is plugged, being able to breath in menthol is better than nothing. 8)
Hey, I never knew about the waxy stuff until we got this honeycomb. It is like gum. I swallowed mine, so hopefully my intestines won’t get glued together.
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Now that you mention it, I haven’t had my usual seasonal ragweed sniffles either this year and I am not a honey user. Maybe there is some other thing at work here. Hmmmm…..
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THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!
This is the worse allergy season I have ever tried to survive. I just now got back from picking up my 4th prescription to try. NOW THIS I can and will do. I loath any kind of medicine yb. I’m going to go march in that unexplored kitchen and get the one food substance I know is there (my honey bear with the yellow hat) and swig some down. Gazoontite and Bless you!
😉 H
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Just remember, Heather, that the trick is making sure the honey in your honey bear has been harvested from local hives. Don’t go buy any of that NY honey…New York hon-ey!! ala Pace Picante sauce. 8) 8)
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That local NM honey at the Grower’s Market is always so good! There was a point when I was going through a jar a week!
The local Venezuelan honey is hit or miss. There are roadside vendors. Sometime you can get a really incredible bottle and sometimes it is not as good or tasty. Tania picked up some in the small, remote town of Zarza the other day and it is a good bottle.
I have just got over a serious lung infection. I am going to include more honey into my diet.
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… honey in tea helps a GREAT deal with the flu …
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Hi, here I am again in disguise as virtualocity….I wonder if you knew that chiropractic care goes a long way toward boosting your immune system and helping you adapt to external stress such as allergens. You have been getting adjusted more regularly than you may realize, it has a cumulative effect.
I also recommend a strong tincture of echinacea, daily for three weeks and a week off…olive leaf extract is powerful…also oil of oregano, all help with allergic sensitivity and the symptoms.
Homeopathic remedies can be wonderful. I got one called Influenzium2007-2008 from my homeopath today, you take a few little pellets for three days, then once a week. It has the strain from the flu vaccine only in minute trace amounts to stimulate an immune response.
Frankly I am surprised that you would get a flu shot, do you know what is in that stuff?
http://www.vaccinetruth.org/new_page_5.htm
LiL
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PS also wanted to say, those photos of the honey and the honeycomb are just beautiful, you get inside the heart of the hive. Thanks, they are great.
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I agree about the homeopathic remedies. I have a terrific herbal book. I swear by these remedies. D
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MM, btw, I did read on a recent blog post of yours that you’ve been sick. Lots of illness lately, it seems. Maybe your desert-mountain lungs are getting saturated by those tropics? Hope that bottle of honey that Tania found helps.
One of our favorite Growers Market purchases is whipped honey. Yum.
canadada, yes, it does help, doesn’t it? I haven’t actually had the flu for the longest time (knock on wood). Every Thanksgiving and/or Christmas holiday, it seemed, I would come down with some major illness—flu or strep or tonsilitis. Then I got my tonsils removed—that must have been at least 7 or so years ago—and I’ve not fallen sick to the whopper types ailments.
lil, yeah, it’s the Gemini in me that goes for the flu shot. You know, one part of me is homeopathic/natural remedy, the other side Western med. I’m balanced that way. LOL!
I bet you’re right about the on-going chiropractic treatments helping me on the allergy front. Those are preventative on many fronts, aren’t they? And in truth, I do feel more energetic, more overall healthy than I have for years. BTW, I will get back into the groove after this week. I have been out-of-balance in terms of dedicating most of my free time to the elections. I’ll need some alignments, I’m sure, and I bet a lot of others will, too. 8)
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p.s., I’m going to read the link on what’s in the flu shot, but I hope it doesn’t scare the pee out of me. Jim never goes for the flu shot. He’ll forego all that stuff almost always and take his chances with germs.
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oh god, don’t start peeing on us now lol
I guess Jim goes for the traditional New Mexican penicillin: Green Chile
also a very important remedy!
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Ybonesy….yes…very sick….horrible stuff. I hate that stuff. I had it in 2006, probably in 2007, and again in 2008. Tania is taking me to a pulmonary specialist next week…uggggh! Feeling better though…just tired of these repertory infections.
I miss the desert…(sigh)
MM
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repertory = respiratory
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Oh yay, lil, Jim lives by green and red penicillin. 8)
mm, yikes, I hope you don’t have anything like walking pneumonia. I have heard that once a person gets pneumonia, scarring in the lungs make the person more susceptible to recurrences. Same with sinusitis, I think.
Remind me, what kind of patient are you when you get sick? (Suffers quiety and alone, or requires much care.) 8)
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Great post, ybonesy, I finally had time to sit down and digest it (no pun intended). It makes me want to check out the local honey. I wish it would work toward my fish allergies. 8)
I went to that link to your post on the bee hives in your orchard. Great photographs in that one. I like the close-ups in this post, too. They become like abstract paintings in a way. Bees are a true marvel of nature.
I think I mentioned somewhere on red Ravine that I had the honey and sunflower seed ice cream at the Minnesota State Fair this summer. A delight. And they had a hive there you could observe. It’s so cool you have them right on your land.
Oh, lil, I read the flu shot link. Whoa, some nasty stuff in those. I’ve never gotten them but a lot of people lined up for them at work last week. I guess some people swear by them but somehow I haven’t been able to trust ingesting that much hair of the dog. 8)
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Thanks, QM. Yeah, maybe if you consumed honey from hives next to the sea, and maybe if fish emitted pollen. 🙂
Bees are a marvel of nature. When we put the honeycomb frame outside after practically licking it clean, the honey bees found it and hovered all around it getting all the last bit of the honey off of it. It’s just amazing how their sensors work.
I do remember you talking about hone and sunflower seed ice cream. I ate a lot of Greek strained yogurt, plain, with almonds, dried bing cherries, and honey. It was my breakfast for that entire time that we had the honeycomb.
QM, I once worked with a woman whose mother had a serious reaction to the flu shot. She developed a sort of stroke, which sounded almost like an autoimmune disease when you heard all the symptoms. My friend didn’t take the flu shot as a result. It can be quite dangerous.
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Thanks for reminding me of this topic, and for having done so with your usual panache. I had a terrible fall season of allergies, so I will approach next year with a different tack.
Great images too.
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ybonesy, thank you for bringing up the flu shot. My parents get a shot every year. My dad can tolerate it, but every year my mother becomes ill after getting one. I called them today. They got their flu shots last Friday & Mom is so sick. I tell her every year to skip it, but she doesn’t listen. D
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