Time to change our tune?

[masterBK]

The stuff is everywhere. They are bound to collect particles that have settled in flowers by mistake

Most of the pollen in honey comes from pollen that drops etc from the anthers into the nectaries rather than from pollen brought back to the hive in the corbiculi. One way pollen from wind pollinated flowers ends up in honey is by way of honeydew excreted by aphids and scale insects and collected by honeybees. Honeydew contains all sorts of stuff that gets stuck in the sticky stuff including fungal spores, algae strands, oxalate crystals, sooty particles as well as pollen from grasses and wind pollinated trees. Most honey samples will have some honeydew in them even if in small amounts.

 

[pargyle]

The Placebo Effect is however very well documented. Possibly the only reliable way to tell whether it actually works would be for you to take a dose of something identical to honey in appearance and taste and compare the results to taking genuine honey, without you actually knowing which is which. Ideally the same test is done across a sufficiently large cohort of hay fever sufferers to ensure the results are statistically significant in case an improvement in your condition for example is actually down to licking the hand-carved wooden spoon you use to take the honey rather than the stainless steel spoon that everyone else uses.

James

To be honest ... I have no desire to convince anyone whether honey is helpful to their hay fever - you can rabbit on as long as you like about placebo effects, lack of scientific evidence, blind tests, control panels etc. I know it works for me and I'm sure others feel the same ...judging by the number of people who buy my honey with the same experience ...

 

[JamezF]

To be honest ... I have no desire to convince anyone whether honey is helpful to their hay fever - you can rabbit on as long as you like about placebo effects, lack of scientific evidence, blind tests, control panels etc. I know it works for me and I'm sure others feel the same ...judging by the number of people who buy my honey with the same experience ...

That's just a long-winded way of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "La la la, I'm not listening". But that's fine by me, because if anyone ever asks me whether eating my honey will help with their hay fever, I can quite honestly answer that whilst the law does not allow me to make medical claims about my honey, I know of someone who is absolutely convinced that eating a spoonful of honey every day works for him

James

 

[madasafish]

I simply tell any prospective customer who asks about hay fever that lots of people buy my honey as they THINK it cures their hay fever, but add but "we do not make any claims ourselves".
Convinces any doubters and is 100% true.

 

[pargyle]

I simply tell any prospective customer who asks about hay fever that lots of people buy my honey as they THINK it cures their hay fever, but add but "we do not make any claims ourselves".
Convinces any doubters and is 100% true.

Exactly the position I take - I tell punters that ask that it appears to help my hay fever and other's buy it for the same reason but I make no claims about it's medical efficacy.

 

[steve1958]

My 21 year old son was born disabled. He can't see, he can't talk, we mobilise him in a wheelchair. He is incontinent and also suffers epileptic type fits, has problems swallowing fluids, and can't feed himself. He has a mental age of a pre school child. He has also undergone several operations in his life.
He has no understanding of his medical conditions or the benefits of honey.
He always suffered with hay fever, then around 18 years ago we started putting a teaspoon of honey from our bees onto his breakfast cereals.
Since introducing honey to his diet his hay fever practically stopped. He still gets it for a few days (around 3 days), each year from what appears to be grass pollen. But otherwise is fine.
Does honey cure hay fever? I don't know.
But it does appear to have cured my sons hay fever.

It's also convinced my wife of the importance of us having bees, and the need for my continued expenditure on bee equipment.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

But it does appear to have cured my sons hay fever.

It's also convinced my wife of the importance of us having bees, and the need for my continued expenditure on bee equipment.

That's great to hear, Steve. Also a good outcome for your beekeeping career!

Year's ago, when I heard the old air borne - insect borne pollens argument against honey providing any relief from hay fever, I felt so smug. To move on from that bad place, I now think it's fine to say to interested people that the anecdotal evidence for the benefits of honey as a hay fever cure may well be real - but unfortunately scientists haven't been able to verify this so far. However, food research is notoriously difficult to manage. I think it's about setting up a control while trying out other things. How do you get the same person to consume two different foods at the same time and then measure the effects separately! (There's nothing of the scientist in me as you can see, so forgive my clumsiness.)

But regarding the different categories of pollen as a way of poopooing the honey relief for hay fever, @ericbeaumont said here: 'the conclusion that honey does not contain pollen to which many people are allergic - grass & wind-pollinated plants - misses a link. Like all things, bees have an electrical charge and are also furry, so attract all pollen, not only those rewarding to them, simply by flying through the air.'

And from Prof Tim Spector: 'It seems that honey might well have health anti-allergy benefits. The best theory is it has an anti-inflammatory effect, and that it may also be presenting the local pollen allergen in a way that allows our gut microbes to recognise it as a harmless protein, thus avoiding an itchy nose.'