It’s a honey of a remedy
SCENES of what I can only call organised (and some not-so-organised) chaos have been the norm at our house for the last couple of weeks, what with builders, painters and roof-leak fixers all over the place. So I wasn’t really surprised when I heard a few expletives explode above the noise of hammers and drills.
It was the beloved. No, he hadn’t stubbed his toe on a wayward tool. He’d got in the way of a carpenter. A big old carpenter bee, that is. He’d inadvertently put his thumb over the bee’s home in one of the soft wood logs we keep specifically for that purpose nestled among the flowers and bushes in our garden borders.
The large lone bees return the favour by pollinating our granadilla vines. We reckon the resultant glorious flowers and luscious fruit are in lieu of rent, and well worth it.
They’re not the only reason we keep our garden bee-friendly. We plant lots of indigenous flowers to help feed the honey bees, too. We’re only too aware of their shrinking numbers and the danger that poses to the environment.
Habitat encroachment, contaminated water and poisonous pesticides are rapidly killing them off worldwide.
According to National Geographic magazine, one out of every three bites of food we take comes from a plant or animal that depends on bee pollination for its very survival. Produce like grapes, apples, onions, pumpkins, soybeans and sunflowers are among the dozens of food items that could die out without them.
As if that wasn’t reason enough to give the bees free food and lodging, there’s the delicious honey they produce; it’s not only tasty, it’s also renowned for its powerful healing properties. Now, according to new studies, there’s even a type of honey – made by bees that feed off New Zealand’s manuka trees – that has the potential to destroy hospital superbug, the deadly drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Tests on the honey have apparently been so successful that it’s been described as “hugely important” by researchers at the Institute for the Biotechnology of Infectious Diseases at the University of Technology in Sydney. Professor Liz Harry, who’s been leading the battle to develop novel antibiotics while examining how natural products function as effective therapeutics for infectious disease, has twice won major scientific awards in recent years, and this breakthrough could well lead to another.
Of course, unusual uses for honey don’t stop there, although I’m not sure what the Prof Liz would make of 20-something Chicago-based Zandi’s “You’re the Bee’s Knees” cocktail. According to her Radical Possibility blog, Zandi taught herself to make it “in the interests of becoming an adult”!
And in the interests of sharing with other honey-lovers, I thought I’d pass it on: You just need to shake up 60ml gin, 60ml honey syrup (one part honey, one part water heated up and stirred until they combine), and 30ml lemon juice.
Sounds so simple, I think I’ll make myself one right now. If nothing else, it may make all the dust and the chaos at home vaguely tolerable.
Today’s Chiel is Stevie Godson. E-mail her at