The Facts About Honey And Allergies

Eating local honey has been considered a natural way to treat one’s seasonal allergies for many years. The rationale is since local honey is made with the local pollens from the area, eating the honey on a regular basis will naturally desensitize you to those pollens. Sounds nice, but does this really work?

The short answer is no. First of all, honey bees do not use the pollen to make honey. It is the nectar they collect from flowers that is transformed to honey. Honey bees do collect pollen but they consume both the pollen and honey for food. The bottom line is there is virtually no pollen or plant antigen in honey.

Further, the pollen from flowers do not significantly cross react with the various trees, grass, and weeds that cause seasonal allergies. So even if honey contained pollen, it wouldn’t do much good. Even allergy injections with flower extracts will not help those with tree or ragweed allergies.

Honey is a delicious, natural sweetener, but nothing more. When it comes to treating your allergies, best to leave the bees out of it.