Wehr Honey Farm in rural Keota. Photo by Sam McIntosh.

While honey can be a sweet addition to tea, biscuits, and other foods, it may also help those with seasonal allergies.

September is national honey month, recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a time to promote beekeeping and honey as a natural and beneficial sweetener. Some say the ingestion of local honey and the local pollen it contains may cause a person to become less sensitive to pollen, and possibly experience fewer seasonal allergy symptoms. Keota honey producer Ron Wehr suggests there is truth to honey’s allergy relief, “Oh yeah, a lot of people swear by it, that local honey helps allergies. Carol, my wife, she’s got allergies and it helps her quite a bit.”

Though it’s not conclusively proven, studies have shown that consuming honey can alleviate allergy symptoms. Besides being a sweetener, honey has been recognized for its antibacterial and antifungal properties for centuries. Of course you can’t have honey without honey bees, for which their pollination is critical to the production of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which are important parts of a healthy diet. According to the USDA, pollination by managed honey bee colonies adds at least $15 billion to the value of U.S. agriculture annually through increased yields and superior-quality harvests.