Alexander

…and by “harsh” they mean “typical”

Here, in the North, as snow covers the ground we make sacrificial fat ball offerings to the beast, you know, just in case. Brain is mostly fat tissue.

It’s their protein source; honey is pretty much carbs-only, good in winter, when they just keep warm, but raising kids on that is not good. Besides, bees are wasps, and wasps are carnivores, they need protein and mostly eat pollen protein in summer if they can. Honeybees eat flesh too, including cannibalism, just less often than plant material - apparently, with organized labor veganism turned out to be more effective, at least for them. No morals behind it, pure business.

What? I literally can see them collecting alder pollen in huge quantities, carrying it on their hind legs like cavalry pants and forming into highly nutritional tubes, it’s possible to trace them from tree to hive - well, it’s not that there is any other pollen source here now anyway. And when I collect honey, quite some amount of this stuff falls down into the tank, not mentioning cross contamination in “pollen is processed at the same facility” honey manufacturing business bees are running. At least that part of the story is certainly true, that gives some basis to disregarding the conclusions of the meta-research you found.

Mind you, as far as I understand, bees convert it a bit too, so it might be somewhat slightly less aggressive than just flying particles in the air or sniffing a flower. Kind of “allergic vaccine” if that mechanism works, which, again, I’m not certain about.

I guess it’s getting a bit easier by the year; but I mean, until it’s gone completely, I couldn’t really tell. I’m basing my “strategy” on same anecdotic knowledge you mentioned, although I’ve never seen it proven right or wrong in a methodical research; I don’t really care, it’s not that if I know it for certain anything will change, I’ll just keep living here and eat the stuff.

It totally is! I’m allergic to several types of pollen, also I live in the middle of the forest and am a beekeeper. My stomach hurts when I eat that stuff. Nothing of this stops me; I also love Spring. I feel quite sick now, too (well, cold weather came back and it’s a bit easier than 2 days ago). Good that I have mild allergy, I’d be dead by now if I had it hard. When birch flowers unusually hard, I sometimes have a symptom that feels like how people describe asthma.

Maybe some day I’ll get desensibilized enough, after eating this stuff regularly. Maybe I’ll die trying.

My neighbor doctor - also a beekeeper - says that many people who perceive honey as slightly spicy actually get allergic reaction from traces of pollen in it. He also thinks my strategy of eating pollen to overcome allergy should eventually work; I think I just like the taste too much to stop.

The trick with pollen I’ve discovered is that as soon as it is extracted from the honeycomb, it starts quickly degrading; whenever it’s sold, it’s bleak tasteless flavorless powder, not even close to explosion of flavor that happens when you chew on a fresh blob right from the honeycomb (usually with the honeycomb, who cares, it’s edible too. Almost everything inside the nest is edible, apart form the frames and other human-made nonsense). Apparently you can get the stuff only from an actual beekeeper (or by raiding wild bees nest probably, I think it’s not a good idea though), and I only figured it out when I started keeping bees!

Ok, as I understood it, there is “edible honey” that is really plant-based, and “carrion meat-based protein storage” that kind of works like pollen storage in honeybees nest. TBH, I find pollen more nutritional and tasty than honey. And I know that honey bees are opportunistic carnivores too. These things kind of come together in a story better left untold.