Category: bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment

bee health · beekeeping · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Bees Health around the Globe. Ukraine.

pattisherlock

We in the states wring our hands over problems facing bees. A high death rate for colonies. Varroa mite invasion. Wild fires. Loss of habitat and flowers. The EPA dragging its feet in banning chemicals that kill bees and threaten human health.

These are legitimate concerns. But consider the unfortunate Ukrainian beekeepers and what they face. The Russian invasion threatens a proud industry.  

At the start of the invasion, Ukraine was the largest European honey producer and the second largest producer in the world. Ukraine produced a bit more honey than the US, partly because along with a thriving commercial industry, many people keep bees and regard them almost like pets.

 The EU favors Ukrainian honey because of its quality. Producers lean organic or have achieved that already. In 2020, Ukraine exported 81,000 tons of honey. About 220,000 beekeepers were registered with the government, but a fraternal organization of beekeepers estimates that real numbers are twice that.  

War has savaged the industry. Honey bee research came to an end. Beekeepers had to flee their homes and abandon their hives. With no one to tend the colonies, disease and the lethal varroa mite parasite go unchecked.

Bombing and skirmishes have destroyed plants and flowers. Russian soldiers set homes ablaze, and some beekeepers have no home to return to. Other beekeepers are cut off from their bee yards.

Exporting honey and other crops became more difficult. Sunflowers, a major crop for Ukraine and a mainstay for bees, have been destroyed in some areas. Growers are hesitant to replant because Russian vehicles can hide in sunflower fields. Farmers may choose to plant rapeseed and buckwheat instead, but that is a difficult choice, because grain growers have been badly hurt, and they might prefer to plant sunflowers that bring in more money than wheat and barley.

Bees that survive have difficulty foraging for food in the ravaged countryside, which impacts the country’s long-term food security and economy.

Trapped in this horrific struggle to remain sovereign, brave Ukrainians dare to look ahead, and hope.  

One beekeeper organized honey sales, with profits going to the military to buy bullets for soldiers. “We will take care of our business afterwards,” he said.

A man who owned a thriving commercial honey business lost everything in a bombing. He turned his efforts to volunteering, and started a program to educate injured combat veterans so they will have a profession to turn to after the war, and a way to support their families. He believes the program contributes to the soldiers’ psychological rehabilitation.    

Beekeepers in areas not impacted by war are reaching out to help beekeepers in war-torn regions. One woman said, “We live in turbulent times that have a definitive bitter taste. All the more need for the sweet taste of honey.”

A google search turns up organizations that help Ukrainian beekeepers. Some have paired with Ukrainian beekeeping organizations to supply replacement bees, bee pollen, sugar for supplemental feeding, cleaning supplies, and vaccines.

Charity Navigator rates organizations for their effectiveness and legitimacy.   

bee health · beekeeping · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature · Uncategorized

Bee Health around the Globe-Australia

pattisherlock

Photo by Amy Blizzard

Bee Health around the Globe. Australia

Australia’s honey producers have something to celebrate and something to mourn.

Australian honey has a reputation for good flavor and purity, and the country is one of the top ten honey producers in the world. Honeybees in Australia live amid an abundance of natural resources in a comparatively pollution-free environment. Bees have a variety of plants to visit, and the climate is mostly favorable.  

The country’s commercial industry mostly operates as nomadic. Hives are moved up to 20 times in a year, either for pollination contracts or for honey production. Beekeepers follow the budding and flowering of plants.

Australia’s native bees are small and stingless. For honey production, beekeepers depend on Asian and European honeybees.   

Australia was the last major country to remain free of the varroa mite, a parasite that has brought calamity to beekeepers around the world. But in 2022, the mite was found in Australian hives.

A government agency jumped into action to keep the mite from spreading. But only two years later, the agency said the mite can’t be eradicated, and shifted its emphasis to trying to contain the parasite. This is the goal in the U.S. also. Beekeepers try to control the spread and lessen the mite’s impact. 

Australia produces a variety of honey on its huge land, with flavors influenced by the local flora. Well-known honeys include:

• Manuka, known for its medicinal properties, produced from the nectar of the Leptospermum (tea trees).  

• Leatherwood, unique to Tasmania, known for its distinctive spicy flavor and aromatic properties.

• Jarrah and Karri, from Western Australia, known for high antimicrobial activity and thick consistency.

• Eucalyptus, with a slightly herbal flavor, harvested from the numerous eucalyptus species across Australia.

The arrival of the destructive varroa mite has been bad news, but the honey industry recently got some good news, too.  Seven years of research on Manuka honey validated its reputation as an antibacterial product. The research confirmed that Australian honey had medicinal properties similar to New Zealand’s well-known manuka honey.

This is a potential boon for the Australian industry. Medical-grade honey sourced from New Zealand earns that country an estimated $75 million a year.

Medical-grade honey has been proven to be an effective treatment for wounds and skin infections. Studies show it can kill superbugs that have built immunity to conventional antibiotics. The honey can be used to treat bacterial infections like C-diff.

“We had assumed that the unique antibacterial activity found in manuka honey is more active and stable than that of other varieties,” a researcher said. “Now, our research confirms this belief and goes a step further. We proved that Australia’s Manuka honey is just as effective, if not better, than New Zealand varieties, based on a survey of 80 Manuka-type Australian honeys.”

Beekeepers believe the research puts Australian Manuka honey on the international radar at a time when antibiotic resistance has been recognized as a global crisis.

bee health · beekeeping · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Bee Health Around the Globe. China

pattisherlock

In China, people revere bees as symbols of good luck and prosperity. Bees appear in art and on clothing.

China still leads the world in honey production, and has more than eight million managed colonies. Plus, the country boasts an enviable diversity of managed and wild honeybee species.

But in some rural parts of China, bees have disappeared. Uncontrolled use of pesticides since the 1980s has wiped them out.   

In Southern Szechuan Province, where pear orchards carpet hillsides and produce fruit for the entire country, no bees showed up to pollinate trees in 2013. Farmers reported this to the government. Beijing insisted that the farmers pollinate the crops by hand.

Today, humans do the work bees once did, and it is a laborious undertaking. A worker painstakingly collects pollen and sets it to dry for two days. Then, using a stick of bamboo and chicken feathers to imitate the body of a bee, the worker touches a blossom. A person can pollinate 30 or fewer trees in a day, whereas a hive of bees can pollinate up to three million flowers in that same time.

It isn’t just pear farmers who have learned to hand-pollinate. Apple, cherry, and other fruit growers also use people to pollinate. Farmers have proven adept at doing the work of bees, hard as it is, but some predict this may not be sustainable. As China makes economic strides, young people move to the cities. Some predict that in 10 to 20 years, farmers may not be able to find laborers to hand-pollinate crops.   

Asian bees have coevolved with the varroa mite, the parasite that has proved so destructive to bees in the U.S. and Europe, and have adjusted to it. But other diseases have jumped national borders and threaten Asian colonies. With its unparalleled diversity of managed and wild honeybee species, a further decline of bees in China would be felt globally.

China continues to use pesticides in large amounts. Farmers are told to restrict pesticide use when crops are blossoming, but some beekeepers find they must move their hives to the forests to try to shield them from heavy spraying.

Gloomy predictions say that once bees have been wiped out in an area, repopulation is unlikely.

Better to cherish and save colonies before that occurs.   

bee health · beekeeping · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Checking in on Bee Health

pattisherlock

Photo by Amy Blizzard

How are bees doing? What is the latest word on apian well-beeing?

Most of us understand that the bees we depend on to pollinate our crops are floundering. But are things getting better, or worse?   

Pollinator advocates say a recent decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spells bad news for bees. The EPA postponed its review of neonics, a family of widely-used, bee-killing pesticides. The agency will not issue a report on neonics until 2026, and the pesticide’s extensive use will continue unrestricted.

Bee lovers fear that colonies cannot wait two years for relief. The precipitous decline in the U.S. bee population continues. Honeybee colonies have died off at an average annual rate of 40 percent over the last decade, and studies conclude that neonics play a major role.   

Bee defenders say the EPA should also consider the health of humans and other species. In the Midwest, neonics are the number one cause of butterfly decline. In humans, research shows that neonics pass from pregnant mothers to the fetus, and into the breast milk of nursing mothers. Studies link neonics to increased risk of birth defects, like malformations in developing hearts and brains.

Even an analysis by the EPA itself concluded that neonics jeopardize the existence of more than 200 threatened and endangered species. Canada, the European Union, and other countries in the world have already put strong restrictions on the pesticides.

In the face of convincing research, why does EPA drag its feet? Critics point to the influence of Big-Ag. Bayer and other agrochemical producers have launched extensive PR and lobbying campaigns. They warn that restricting neonics will harm crop production, but experience has shown otherwise.

In Quebec, Canada, a 2019 crackdown on neonics made farmers reduce their use of neonic-treated corn seed by 99.5 percent. Four years later, crop yield remained consistent. Cornell University found that neonic-treated seed for major crops provided “no overall net income benefit” to farmers.

A single neonic-treated seed can contain enough active ingredients to kill a quarter-million bees. DDT, which the U.S. banned, looks tame compared to neonics. Neonics are 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic to bees.

The crop absorbs only a fraction of the neonics. The rest leaches into the environment to contaminate soil, rivers and streams, and even drinking water.

Persons who want to complain to the EPA about its decision can sign a National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) petition found online. Other environmental groups may be circulating petitions, too.   

Next time: How are bees doing around the globe?

bee health · beekeeping · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Lessons in Democracy from the Honey Bee

pattisherlock

My eight-grade civics teacher told us that ancient Greeks were the first to practice democracy.

Years later, a Basque-American told me that was incorrect. The Basque homeland held that distinction.  

Some say Sumerians, certain regions of India, and assorted indigenous tribes were first to experiment with democracy.

But it turns out that humans are novices in democratic organization, compared to a nonhuman species we share life with. Honey bees.    

A book, Honeybee Democracy, attracted attention when its author, Thomas Seeley, of Cornell University, explained how bees make the decision to swarm and relocate to a new home. The venture involves scouting the countryside, visiting potential sites that other scouts have discovered, group discussion, and dancing to disclose location. Seeley says the bees cooperate in a way that humans would do well to emulate.  

Honey bees swarm to multiply, continue the species, and extend their reach. When a hive gets crowded, or no longer feels vibrant, scouts, the most mature bees in the hive, go looking for a new home. Scouts report back their findings, then scout committees go off to check out the candidate sites.  

While scouts may prefer the locations they found, the final decision stands on what is best for the hive’s welfare—proximity to water and food, safety, and comfort. It’s a lot to process for the bee’s poppy-seed brain.

Vigorous discussion follows. After arriving at a choice, the scouts rouse the queen and most of the workers to follow them to the new location. They leave behind enough workers to tend unborn brood and a virgin queen, who will mate and hopefully repopulate the original hive.

Seeley claims human groups could benefit from following the example of bees.

First, a group should be made up of individuals who share interests and mutual respect. Bees have a singular purpose that humans may not, but humans can remind themselves that everyone has a stake in the group’s welfare.   

Second, leaders should minimize their influence on the group. In the hive, each scout has an equal say. True democracy. No leader collects the information from various groups or tells others what to do.

Third. Honeybees open themselves to diverse solutions. They investigate the widest possible choices, increasing their chances of ending up in great living quarters. Seeley advises humans to create environments where group members feel comfortable about proposing solutions.

Fourth. Spirited debate can be positive. Seeley says bees ingeniously balance interdependence and independence. They work together to sort out good options from poor ones. Looking around, we may wish we saw these principles at work more in our species, though Quakers manage to sit quietly, waiting for the Spirit to move them to consensus. They don’t require everyone to agree, but they decline to move ahead if someone actively objects to an idea.

Bees preceded us on the planet by millions of years. They have had more time to work out democratic decision-making.

Yet, even with all that time and practice behind them, bees sometimes end up in the eaves of gas stations, or under the hoods of cars, and we wonder, why?  

Gorged with food, they may just be stopping to rest on their journey. Or, maybe they sometimes get it wrong.

Like us.

bee health · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Bees and Humans Go Way Back

Featured pattisherlock

Did early humans have sweet tooths? Did they apply honey to wounds on their hairy bodies?  Did they put a protective layer of wax on cave paintings?

We can only guess. But archeologists tell us that Stone Age humans knew the value of honey. An early picture in Spain, thought to be 9,000 years old, depicts people gathering honey.

Some experts say ancestors on our evolutionary tree started using honey much earlier. Anthropologists believe Neanderthals gathered and ate honey for its nutritional value.

As the human brain got larger, it required more fuel. Energy-rich honey may have answered that need. Fossils show that our ancestors started growing smaller molars, which suggests they dined on easier-to-consume food. Honey?

Nearly every language in the world has a word for honey. If not the oldest sweetener, it is one of the oldest, and was found almost everywhere. It has been used throughout history as a medicine for many ailments. Mesopotamia, one of the oldest civilizations, discovered that honey could be used as an antiseptic. The Babylonians and Sumerians mentioned honey in their writings. Egyptians and Greeks used honey cakes as a gift to their gods and even as an ingredient in embalming fluids.

Alcoholic beverages made from fermented honey have been around for 20 to 40 thousand years.

Long before Europeans brought honey bees to the Americas, Mayan beekeepers harvested honey from the log nests of stingless bees native to tropical forests. Mayans were expert beekeepers, and the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico tries to hang on to some ancient bee traditions and ceremonies.  

In India, ancient Hindu Vedic and various Buddhist scriptures mention bees and beekeeping. Ancient rock paintings from the Mesolithic period depicted honey collection from wild combs.

When the British attacked an area of India in the 1800s, a local tribe reportedly used domestic bees as a weapon against the invaders.

Writings on animal bones, dating back 3,000 years, have been found in China. Later writings, from 300 BCE during the Zhou Dynasty, mentioned honey as a dietary recommendation.  

Our dependence on bees to give us a delicious, nourishing food and useful medicine goes way back. Add to that, uses for wax and pollen. We have bees to thank for many vibrant-colored flowers. And consider the variety of fruits and vegetables bees pollinate.   

Bees have been our allies for a long time. We need to do more to protect and nourish them.  

bee health · bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Bee-nign Ways to Quench Apian Thirst

Featured pattisherlock

Photo by Skyler Ewing

Worker bees put in a hard day flying back and forth from flowers to hive, visiting hundreds of blooms. They can carry almost their weight in pollen and nectar, and they work from sun up to sun down. They get thirsty, and keep their compound eyes out for water.

On a hot day at the hive, bees spread water over honeycomb cells and fan them to help cool the hive. If honey in the comb becomes crystallized and too thick for bees to eat, bees dilute the honey with water to make it soft and edible again.

Anyone who feels friendly to bees can help them by offering them a water source, preferably near blooming flowers. Some precautions are necessary.

Even if a water container is shallow, it should have islands so bees can get a drink without danger of drowning. Small pieces of wood or flat rocks can be slabs where bees can sit and drink. Some people use marbles. My watering bowl has golf balls.

I also have a poultry feeder that contains enough water to last for several days. I put rocks, twigs, and stems in the trough to make bees feel at home. Some people use an upside-down terra cotta planter, and place a saucer or pie pan on top. A section of a bird feeder can be made safe for bees by adding rocks to it. Self-watering pet dishes can be modified to provide water for bees.

Lately, colorful, flower-shaped, irresistibly cute garden decorations meant to hold water for bees have appeared for sale.    

No beekeeper wants anyone feeding sugar water to their bees. The bees need to be in the flowers collecting nectar and pollen. Honey from the store should not be fed to bees, either. The honey that bees eat at home is the right one for them. In times of dearth, beekeepers may decide to supplement their bees with syrup, but they know the right mixture, and even beekeepers disagree about when and how that should occur. 

Sometimes ideas appear on the internet from well-intentioned people who want to give bees a treat. Open a watermelon and watch bees show up. Shredded apples, they say, could provide bees with nutrition and moisture. Some people ask about putting out fruit juice.  

It is unlikely any of these treats can be offered to bees without wasps turning up instantly. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, known for his reverence for life, asked a nurse to catch a fly and release it outside, rather than kill it. But some of us feel no such charity toward wasps, partly because wasps prey on bees.

The treats mentioned might also give bees diarrhea. And with ripe fruit comes the hazard of fermentation.    

Some tap water, if treated with chemicals, may not appeal to bees. And run-off contaminated with pesticides is deadly.    

But the good-hearted person who has good water to share, and a willingness to provide a safe way to dispense it, will be rewarded with close-up viewing of the fuzzy pollinators we depend on.  

bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

I’m Pickin’ Up Good Vibrations. Oom, bop, bop.

Featured pattisherlock

 When I used to walk with my friend Mary, she sometimes stopped, closed her eyes, and said, “Listen.”

What? I didn’t hear anything, not at first. But a moment later, the hum of bees would reach my ear.

Mary resisted hurrying on. Instead, we stood listening, on a town sidewalk or on a hiking trail, and as the sound seeped into me, so did a sense of peace.

Mary, an intuitive person, grasped something that folks ancient and modern have believed. The sound of bees can heal us.

Slovenia has a high density of bees compared to other countries. A fire department there recognized the stresses firefighters face—accidents, casualties and disasters, along with fighting fires. The department employed psychological help, but wanted to add something else to promote relaxation. The station took up beekeeping.

Firefighters believe that the sound of bees calms them. “The fragrance the bees emit is also healing,” a firefighter said. Another said, “The demand for mitigating talks after difficult accidents has diminished. The atmosphere is different, more positive.”  

At some Slovenian schools, students coexist with bee colonies. Teachers send restless students to care for the bees, and it calms the child.

A beekeeper in Rochester, Massachusetts, has constructed a shed above her hives, where visitors can seek rest. The visitor lies on a wooden bench, separated from the bees by wire mesh, and lets go of tension. The beekeeper says the visitor departs with more energy, and she believes the sound helps asthma, insomnia, high blood pressure, and other maladies. Similar places can be found in California.

Ulleotherapy, the practice of sleeping above bees, is common in Russia as well as in Ukraine, China, Japan, Korea, and Canada. In America, the practice usually is called bee therapy, or sleeping with bees. 

Proponents say many factors combine to provide a state of healing for the body. The micro-vibration created by bees fanning their wings, to evaporate moisture from the nectar, is one factor. For the person sleeping above the hive, it is like a light vibro-massage, acting positively on the nervous, circulatory, and muscular system.

Clean, ionized air, as in ionotherapy, is created in the hive and inhaled by the patient sleeping above. The air comes through a fine mesh screen. Advocates suggest that microbes in bronchi and lungs are killed during ten minutes of inhalation. 

Aromatherapy offered by the smell of nectar, honey, and propolis, all create a relaxed atmosphere, inducing sleep for many participants. 

Bee buzzing induces a mild, meditative trance. Supporters claim this balances the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and removes fatigue, stress, and tension. Physical and emotional relaxation trigger an improved emotional state.   

Proponents say that numerous studies have reported positive effects in rheumatic, dermatological, urology, gynecology, cardiology, endocrinology, and respiratory systems, as well as the musculoskeletal system. Some say it cures chronic diseases, normalizes potency in men, and eliminates insomnia. 

I couldn’t find these studies. Maybe a longer search of the internet would have uncovered one.  

Claims for the benefits of sleeping with bees may be exaggerated or may be right on. But those of us who like bees can probably agree on this. Taking time to sit beside a hive, or beneath a blooming fruit tree, humming with bees—just listening—might be the most soul-nourishing thing we do that day.   

bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

Please Won’t You Bee My Neighbor?

Featured pattisherlock

The man who taught Beginning Beekeeping advised us to inform our neighbors that we had acquired bees. In his view, it was the neighborly thing to do.  

The first time I raised bees, many years before, we planted our hives on a distant corner of our 40-acre farm. We ignored them. They left, eventually. I planned to do beekeeping with more care this time.

I live on an acre in the country, with lots of room. When I saw my closest neighbors working in their yard, I went over to tell them I had purchased bees and bee houses. I mumbled it, like a confession.   

The couple looked at each other. “Yay!” the man said. The woman said, “Let’s plant our garden close to the fence, so they don’t have to fly far.”

The neighbor I share irrigation water with said, “I hope this helps our pear tree. It hasn’t been doing well.” Today, that neighbor calls the pollinators in her productive pear tree “our bees.” “I’m getting rid of wasp nests,” she says, “to protect our bees.”

A summer celebration in our rural community brings together people from acreages and from farms. The first summer I had bees, I sat down to eat at a table of farmers. A man said to me, “Are you the one with bees?” Uh-oh. Had he been stung? Had my bees annoyed his wife as she hung her wash?  

A suspenseful silence followed. Finally, he said, “We have the best raspberry crop we’ve had in years. Tell your bees thank you.”

A good friend of mine longs to keep bees, but her across-the-street neighbor has a severe allergy. Bees forage a three-mile radius, so the man likely encounters bees, regardless. But I understand not wanting to increase his risk.   

In spring, bees can be a nuisance. They act confused when they first emerge. My neighbors tell me that my bees swarm around their yards. In spring, I can’t go in and out of my house without a bunch of bees following me in.

For years, I tried to capture them individually, with an envelope and a glass. Often, this resulted in accidental deaths. Now I leave the door open. Wasps aren’t out yet, and flies are few. The bees hum around the kitchen for a while, then leave. This investigative phase lasts for only a couple of days.   

One year, I bought used equipment from a beekeeper who lives in town. The city allows for four hives, and that’s what he has—four neat hives snugged up against his house. I asked how his neighbors feel about them.

“They don’t know I have them. Bees go up. In the morning, my bees fly up and away, and the neighbors aren’t aware they live here.”

It looks like beekeepers have a choice. To tell their neighbors, or not. A disadvantage in not telling, seems to me, is that the beekeeper misses out on neighbors’ gratitude.  

Some people don’t want to be near bees. Some people mistake wasps for bees. But even those who are leery of bees understand their importance to everything—vegetables, nuts, alfalfa hay for dairy cows, beautiful flowers.

People miss bees when they aren’t present, and welcome them when they come to a  neighborhood.

bees, pollinators, beekeeping, environment · natural cures · nature

The Good Word on Honey from Regular Folks

Featured pattisherlock

Photo by Art Rachen/Unsplashed

When I hear a hard-to-believe story or theory, I check with Snopes to see if it is real.  And when someone tells me about a miracle cure, I search for lab studies that back up the claim.    

But when it comes to honey, I love hearing the opinions and experiences of regular folks. A belief that has not been tested in a laboratory can still be valid.   

While waiting for a friend at a coffee shop, a cheerful man at the next table wearing a Vietnam veteran hat started telling me his recipe for good health. Honey. A tablespoon every morning. The man buys expensive manuka honey, which is loaded with healthful properties, but gets it at Costco where the price isn’t as steep.

“I feel great. I have longtime medical issues, but they don’t slow me down. Honey helps many systems in the body. I have a positive mental attitude, too, which honey has played a part in.”

A woman I knew suffered from severe allergies and asthma, year after year. She went from one specialist to another. One doctor advised her to find a source of local honey, which she did. After taking it for a while, she experienced the best spring she could remember.

A man who owns a thriving honey company here said he depends on a spoonful of honey every day for health. He takes his at night.

 “Our brains work all night. I want to send my brain nourishment, so I take a spoonful of honey at bedtime. I sleep like a child.”

 Here are other testimonials I have heard or read.

A man who had chronic digestive issues since he was a child had tried enzymes and probiotics and all kinds of cures. But honey worked for him, and right away. He felt like a new man within a week.   

Several people report that they apply honey to cuts, even deep ones, and the area heals without scarring.

A family that has various ailments, including high cholesterol, diabetes, an anxiety disorder, and high blood pressure enjoys breakfast together, one that is healthful for all of them. Oats cooked with raisins and cinnamon. When it cools slightly, they add honey.  

A woman makes sure her 89-year-old mother has a teaspoon of honey three times a day.

Some people report honey aids with weight loss. They say their cravings for sweets went away when they added honey to their diet. Some mix the honey with other ingredients like lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, or ginger, and subsequently lose weight. Sometimes 20 pounds or so.   

Many rely on honey and tea to quiet coughs. When my children were little, our general practitioner told me that no cough medicine from the store could equal honey and hot tea.  

I appreciate that prestigious laboratories are studying honey and its health benefits. I’m happy their findings back up what people for centuries have believed—that honey is a boon for humans, because it is delicious, and also contributes to human well-being. Science bolsters honey’s reputation.  

Still, you can’t beat a personal story from someone who credits honey for a positive impact on their health. That person is apt to care about bees and their welfare.