Hay fever and honey - my final and most unpopular blog ever

Last week someone contacted me via the web site asking about my honey. He wanted it for his hay fever and needed 'raw' honey.

As he lived in Luton, the postage made it pointless and I told him how to find a local bee keeper in the area.

However it was a reminder that the hay fever season is soon upon us.

There's quite a few things I enjoy about bee keeping, watching the bees, being outside, not having to deal with people. etc
One of the spin offs from the bee keeping has been the unintended and unplanned involvement in selling honey and bee stuff at farmers markets, and there's a lot about doing markets I don't like.
I'm not bothered about making money [I don't, anything we make is spent on the bees], I don't like the preparations I have to make before hand [bottling honey, making marmalade, fudge, honey comb, propolis etc], packing everything into the Jeep the day before isn't great, unpacking and setting up is a pain as is the packing  way afterwards which consists of throwing everything into the back of the Jeep and sorting it out the next day.

After the initial enthusiasm for doing markets died off I now limit myself to one regular monthly market [Bromham Mill], one quarterly market [Potton Four Seasons] and a few 'one offs' like Kempston Fun Day and the Bromham Show.

Gone are the days when I would sit in a draughty village hall and not take enough to cover the cost of the stall and petrol however worthy the cause.

So why do them?  I have to something with the honey. I used to give it away to friends, family and people in the village but the amount I could potentially produce now is far greater than I need to do that.

Surprisingly for a black hearted misanthrope like me who completely agrees that 'Hell is other people' I quite enjoy the social side of the markets.

Bees have a back story and people are interested in them mostly because of the media coverage they get about their, and potentially our, imminent demise. In the three years I have been doing markets I have only had to deal with only two nutters and a handful of irritants and even I can manage to be polite to people for a couple of minutes. Just.

So I have lots of conversations about 'bees' and there tends to be three main topics - 'the bees are dying', 'local honey is good for you' and 'hay fever and honey' for which I have disappointing opinions on all three.

Most people cannot identify a honey bee so don't really know what is meant by a 'bee'. and although honey bees face huge problems with habitat, pesticides, disease etc, as long as there are bee keepers they will be OK. They are not endangered and the numbers of colonies have increased in recent years.

I am often asked if my honey is 'local'. I have no idea what is local so I just tell them where my bees are and they can make their own mind up. I did a market in Milton Keynes once and someone wouldn't buy the honey as it wasn't local.

Some farmer's markets require any produce to come from within a 30 mile radius which is a bit extreme for honey bees as they only travel up to 5 miles to forage.

The fact that New Zealand is about 11000 miles away doesn't stop people buying Manuka honey and all honey has antibacterial and antiseptic properties, wherever its from.

 I am also asked if my honey is 'raw', 'organic' or 'natural'. I try to resist the temptation to ask 'exactly what do you mean by that?'

'Local', 'good for you' and 'hay fever' all seem to be intertwined.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that 'local honey is good for hay fever' Neither I nor any of my family suffer from hay fever. so I can't comment from a personal point of view and have just accepted it.

The 'local' thing never made much sense to me. It seems a lot of people suffer from a reaction to Oil Seed Rape. Admittedly OSR is far less common this year but isn't pollen from OSR in Scotland the same as OSR pollen in Bedford?

My fees could forage on plants that are not to be found say 10 miles away but still be considered 'local'

A fellow bee keeper told me a friend of his had streaming eyes and nose and wanted his honey to deal with the hay fever. He told her she was too late [it was May time] and she should have started taking a spoonful of honey every day from January. [what I call the Mary Poppins method]

I have re-told this story numerous times and also repeated the theory behind the honey and hay fever  is that the sufferer is having an allergic reaction to pollen and if you take a small dose regularly it helps your immune system to develop a resistance.

Because I had so many conversations about this I thought I would try and find some definite proof/research to back it up.

And found nothing.

There were a few vague reference to some very general work done a long time ago but nothing that could be called proof.

So I contacted two UK allergy charities

Action against Allergy said:-

Dear Mr Reed This country remedy has been known about for a very long time - but we don't know of any medical evidence to support it - though we are trying to find out and will let you know if we are lucky.

AllergyUK said:-

Hi Martin,

Thanks for getting in touch with us.In regards to your email, unfortunately there is no evidence to suggest that local honey will improve symptoms of hay fever. Local refers to honey that is sourced from bees local to a specific area, so pollen from nearby flowers would be present in that honey. The majority of people with hay fever will react to grass pollens and as bees only pollinate flowers, using honey as a treatment would have no effect. Even those who react to pollen from flowers would most likely see little to no improvement with this symptoms.

So I thought I would look at the NHS web site to see if there was anything there.

They had this

Lots about things to try but nothing about honey but it does mention immunotherapy and treatment with pollen but 

The allergen can be given to you as:

• an injection into your skin – this is known as systemic injection immunotherapy (SIT)

• a tablet that dissolves under your tongue – this is known as sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT)

 It also says

Immunotherapy is only carried out in specialist medical centres, in case a serious allergic reaction, known as anaphylaxis, occurs.

 Nothing about local honey from a farmer's market.

Honey bees are not the best pollinators, Bumble bees and solitary are far more effective.

However they are efficient pollen collectors and they can collect large amounts in their pollen sacs.

Therefore the amount of pollen that is on their bodies that could possibly get into the honey is apparently infinitesimally small and far below anything needed to develop a resistance.

Apparently 80% of people who suffer from hay fever are reacting to grass pollen which is wind pollinated and won't be collected by honey bees. Pollen from things pollinated by bees is sticky so it adheres to the bee so difficult for us to come in contact with.

So as far as I can see its an urban myth, so why do people believe it?

Its said that if you repeat something enough people will believe it and certainly the press drag this up every Summer and recently this article about what to do if you suffer from hay fever  appeared in Hello! magazine.

'Local honey'? - check

'Limits effect of hay fever'? - check

'Honey builds up a tolerance? - check.

I was interested to see that Chloe Parker the author claims 'there is some strong evidence' and thought the two allergy charities, who told me there is no evidence and we don't know of any medical evidence might be interested. 
I couldn't contact the author of the article, who is writing daily celebrity news stories as well as fashion, beauty, travel and lifestyle features   and who is probably very busy using her obvious knowledge of immunology and entomology at the Hello! Institute of Scientific Research who I understand are about to issue some strong evidence that avocado, sun dried tomatoes and fairy dust cures cellulite. OMG!
I also left a comment on the web page but oddly it never appeared. I wonder why

There will be numerous articles in comics like Hello! spinning the latest hippy snake oil remedies in their lifestyle sections and the daily press isn't immune to some half truths.
When I was checking the postage of the honey to Luton, I talked about this issue with the local post master who said 'but this is in the papers all the time!'.

When I met the Two Apothecaries at Wrest Park over the weekend.who reenact medieval medicines and use my propolis for their display, Julian told me about a condition called scrofula ['???] that could only be cured by touching a coin called an Angel that had been touched by the King.As there is never a King about when you need one our conversation turned to  placebos.. The conversation then turned to honey and hay fever.
Valerie is involved in running clinical trials has experienced the placebo effect many times.

I found some scientific research that suggested it may be a placebo.

In the study, published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in 2002 in America, the scientists followed dozens of allergy sufferers through the springtime allergy season. The subjects were randomly split into three groups. One consumed a tablespoonful daily of locally collected, unpasteurised and unfiltered honey; another ate commercial honey; and a third was given a corn syrup placebo with synthetic honey flavouring.
After tracking the subjects’ symptoms for months, the scientists found that neither of the honey groups saw improvements over the placebo group.

So, lots of people say it works and the Great British Press says so too but there doesn't appear to be any evidence supporting it.

May is fairly busy for me from a market point of view, I'm doing four markets and giving three talks.

I'll let you know how many people mention hay fever and local honey

And how many punch me in the face when I say its probably a myth.