Australian Native bee honey – is it really medicinal?

Written by Clay.

A bit of a back story here. Given that I’m a proud Australian and most importantly, I’m an avid supporter of the Aussie thong (flip flop, plugga – list goes on). However my continual wearing of thongs causes me to be the bearer of cracked heals every.single.spring! And when I say cracked heels I mean deep, painful cracks that generally get infected resulting in the need for antibiotics. I’ll spare you the photos – you’re welcome! 

Up until three years ago it was a vicious cycle. My heels would crack, I would hobble around, Jac (my wife, to whom I should listen more) would nag me to put native bee honey on the cracks on my feet. I would politely decline as I’m not a great believer (or wasn’t) in the ‘mumbo jumbo’, natural healing, wave a magic wand kinda medicine. Needless to say, without any treatment, I would eventually find myself back on antibiotics to heal my swollen feet.

So….. I’m happy to admit defeat. When I’m wrong. When I really should listen to my wife (did I mention that she edited this blog post?).

About three years ago,  I finally caved in and let Jac slop some of our Australian native stingless bee honey on the cracks on my heels. I had a doctor appointment booked the following day so I figured I had nothing to lose. Note to self, it stung like hell the first time she applied it. But she put up with my manly complaining and covered each of the infected cracks with bandaids after she had smeared my heals (cracks) with NB honey the night before my scheduled doctor appointment to get antibiotics.

The next morning I was somewhat surprised the pain in my feet had significantly reduced and as such I held off on my doctors visit to just wait and see what happened. That night, Jac again did her thing applying the honey and then placing a dressing over it. Next morning I woke with zero pain and no infection with a happy (yet somewhat smug) wife.

Given being a supportive husband I refused to accept “NB honey” could be responsible for fixing my feet. It was a coincidence surely 🤔.

Well what I can tell you that I haven’t needed to take antibiotics for cracked heels two or three years. My heels still crack every year but as soon as they do, Jac puts the honey on them and the infection goes pretty quickly.

Do I believe in all that ‘mumbo jumbo’? Absolutely I do!!👌

So much so our three boys can eat as much of ‘our bees nectar (NB honey) from the gods as they like’.

Our youngest boy was recently very sick for a few days, high fevers, throat infection, lethargy etc. During such as part of his treatment we gave him ‘our bees’ honey.

Whilst I can’t prove it helped his terribly sore throat, I can say that it made his throat feel that little bit better every time he had a spoon of our honey.

We feel so privileged about having access to our beautiful bees and their honey.

I have never been one to promote natural or alternative therapies but given our experience and the fact our Indigenous have been using this since they have walked the lands a long time before us, a lot has to be said about Australian Stingless Native Bee Honey 🍯 .

Clay

Disclaimer: the honey we ‘rob’ (harvest) from our hives is taken from a box which is separate from the brood chamber within the hive box. We NEVER harvest honey from the brood chamber as this is the food the bees rely on when the weather is poor or food sources are scarce. Read more about harvesting honey in our other blog post.

We do have native stingless bee honey available from time to time.

Inside a full honey super (honey box) of an Australian Native Stingless Bee colony.