"As a study trumpets the food’s medicinal properties, there’s a buzz about beekeeping in the UK".

"When honey made headlines this week as a better treatment for coughs and colds than antibiotics, beekeepers sat smugly by. “I’ve been saying this for ages,” says Carly Hooper, who has 12 hives near her home in Fleet, Hampshire, and a honey-based business.

The study, published in the journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine, found that honey was a more effective treatment for coughs, blocked noses and sore throats than many remedies more conventionally prescribed.

The researchers from the University of Oxford recommended honey as a cheap, accessible and low-risk treatment for symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), on which antibiotics have no effect.

For beekeepers with a steady supply on tap, the findings came as no surprise."

Elle Hunt reports for the Guardian August 21, 2020. [2]