Honey.....

Linking up with Chrisy for Reconnecting with Nature.  We were at the Farmer's Market the other day, specifically looking for local wildflower honey.  We found it.  Nice thick, dark, non-processed honey.

All thanks to these honey bees

They are quite amazing - and where would we be without them?  90% of flowering plants are pollinated with the assistance of animals -- 90 percent!

Growing up in the country - and around cranberry bogs - there were always bees flying around.   The cranberry growers (and I'm sure other fruit and vegetable growers) actually rent hives to help pollenate the crops.  So during the warmers months, you will see the boxes of hives near the bogs.

  For the most part, if you don't both them, they don't bother you.  I remember one day Andy was next door mowing my parents lawn and came back into the house and said there were a LOT of bees out front.  He was right.  There were a LOT of bees.  I can't remember why, but apparently they left their hive and were looking for a new home.  One of our trees looked like a good place, so once the queen bee landed in the tree they all followed her.  Jim's father knew how to handle the bees, so we had him come over and get rid of them.

Since spring is right around the corner (notice that optimism?) that means allergy season will be here soon, too.  I heard from a nutritionist that if you eat one teaspoon of local wildflower honey every day for two weeks, it will help decrease the severity of your allergies.   It puts all of those allergens into your system in a slow, more controlled way so your body can build up it's defenses again them.  You can add it to tea, oatmeal, smoothies, whatever you want.  Yum!!