Do you suffer from hay-fever, or do you know someone that does? Ever thought about ways YOU can help the environment? Want to know more about the vital work that bees do for nature?
Did you know: It takes the bees three weeks and 20,000 trips to collect 1lb (a jar) of honey! 1/3 of our food supplies relies on bees for pollination. Bees have been around for approximately 27 million years. Hayfever sufferers may get relief from eating local honey. 'Surrey Honey' has a different taste to foreign 'supermarket' honey.
Extracts from an article in "The Times" on 21st April 2001 "A hive of activity in the orchard": "The earliest known honey 'prescription' was found in a Sumerian (now Iraq) clay tablet dated to 2100BC, as a treatment for skin ulcers and open wounds. More than two millennia later and research has backed this up. Honey has an anti-microbial effect: it kills harmful pathogens in wounds. You should not, however, expect similar results from supermarket honeys: the heat treatment of commercial honey destroys many, if not all, of the beneficial effects! Beekeepers raid the honey once or twice a year. A hive, which may hold 40,000 bees in high summer, can (in a good year) produce up to 50lb of honey surplus to its needs".
Bees and honey: The Kingston Beekeepers club website: http://www.kingstonbeekeepers.org.uk The British Beekeepers' Association website: www.bbka.org.uk (02476 696 679) International Bee Research Association: www.cf.ac.uk/ibra (New book: Honey and Healing £5.50) Medical honey: www.medihoney.com