Spring, Itchy skin and local honey

October has been unusually cool, wet and windy. We’ve only had a few warm days. Once the mercury starts to climb, it will truly be hay fever season and itchy dog season. One useful and easy tip that I always recommend to my clients is to give your dog a little bit of local honey daily. Just the tip of a teaspoon’s worth is plenty. Local honey means that the bees have collected honey from the area you live in. There are small amounts of local pollen in the honey to help desensitize your dog if it is allergic to those pollen. Make sure it is local honey and not just a local bee keeper. Always find out where the honey comes from.I once made the mistake of buying very local honey (ie my suburb) and this was not as effective. Why? Bees travel only so far to collect nectar. The wind will blow pollen from a much wider area. The best local honey collects from the region out of a number of sites rather than just someone’s backyard. I also buy the smallest jar possible so that I am getting the latest batch of honey. No point eating autumn honey in spring. It will be a different set of pollen. Sometimes the expiry date may include the month and that could indicate what month the honey was collected in. By the way, I rarely get hay fever nowadays.

One thought on “Spring, Itchy skin and local honey

  1. Barb Fenwick Reply

    Hi, my name is Barb do yo have any honey from Kilmore in Victoria? My husband gets very bad hayfever and I’m trying to find local honey. Regards Barb

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