Honey

My Mom invited me recently to an intro beekeeping class.  (Thanks Mom!)   It was out in a field not too far from her house, where a new apiary of 5 hives is being established.  However, the company has hives scattered from Austin to Dallas, and then they batch the honey for local sale.  The beekeeper and his assistant talked about the parts of a hive for a while, and then we got suited up in a full bee suit to go open some of the hives and check on the bees.  Although it was 100 degree and humid, and we were wearing jeans, short and long-sleeve shirts, a full bee suit and over-the-elbow gloves, seeing the hives was really neat.  (Don't spas charge 100's of dollars for those "wraps"?) 

And I decided to give "local honey" a shot at improving my allergies, but it is surprisingly hard to eat 1 Tbsp of honey a day.  It tastes great on hot buttered toast and peanut butter sandwiches, but I think that's about it. Didn't care for it drizzled over sliced strawberries, substituted for caramel sauce in my morning coffee, and when dissolved into hot water as a "tea", the second half of the cup wasn't nearly as tasty as the first.  So every day for a year might be a stretch.  No wonder the only study out there on local honey and allergies was equivocal.  Maybe no one actually did it.  It could be due to a hundred other factors or just my imagination, but my nasal allergies have seemed worse since starting it.  Which would make sense if ingesting local honey actually does trigger a low level immune response  like allergy shots do. 

Sure would be nice it if did work.  I'd really rather spend $13 a month on honey than $30 a month on Nasonex.