Same idea as immunotherapy shots or sublingual drops.
Whether it's actually local, and if the allergens are actually concentrated enough to make any difference, is a very different question. Set of questions.
I'm guessing this is a US thing? At least I've never heard of it before as a european and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be allowed to be sold as honey here
Excuse me? Immunology shots are freaking amazing. I've been on them for about 2 years and the difference between last spring and this sptirng is incredible. I no longer need Allegra daily.
I only did mine for 6 months, but I went from dying every spring to getting a bit sniffly if the pollen count is so high walking outside smells like it. I can't imagine how effective it would have been if I did all 3 years.
Fun fact: you can do it with poison ivy. I knew someone who had it done, and he could rub the stuff on his face with no reaction.
Definitely a shitpost, but please consider other treatments for allergies than honey. Honey bees are domesticated and have a net negative on local environments where they aren't native, such as North America. And rearing honey bees is not vegan, for those who care about pollinator welfare on both the domesticated and natural sides.
alright we doin this okay so most small-time beekepers at least (can't speak for the larger industrial ones) only rarely resort to providing sugar as a substitute for honey because bees massively overprodice it. Also, the lack of micronutrients is not supported by any literature I can find, and additionally sugar substitution should only occur during the winter regardless. Finally: if bees are being exploited they will just leave. Everything I've found indicates that under poor conditions the entire hive will swarm and just go somewhere else. I do think the point about impacting biodiversity is valid, but if that were a decider for whether a food source is vegan there would be a whole lot fewer crops on that list.
My dad is a beekeeper, so I can pretty much confirm what you're saying about sugar bricks/syrup in the winter. And actually there is some evidence online saying that beekeepers should keep honey in the hives.
As for migration, many wild bees hibernate, in-place over the winter, and the research regarding wild honey bees, although sparse, seems to suggest the same. Having bees stay in the same hive over the winter isn't necessarily unnatural.
On the swarming point, beekeepers try to observe and look out for specific signs of swarming in order to prevent this from happening. And if swarming does happen, beekeepers can set up swarm traps. My dad has done this in the past, and he has had some success.
The point about all of the above though is that beekeepers 1) intentionally rob the bees of the work (i.e. honey creation) they've contributed to over the course of the spring/summer/fall nectar flows, and 2) intentionally try to trap hives that want to escape due to a lack of good conditions - both immoral acts imo.
And the biodiversity impacts don't just affect food sources. Honey bees in such high populations that even modest beekeeping operations sustain overcrowd the native populations, capitalizing on nectar resources first, and risk native populations via virus and disease spillover. Native plants often have adapted along with native bees over time such that both species receive/perform pollination activities to 100% effectiveness. Honey bees are generalists, and so while they may pollinate more plants, they may only do so to 75% effectiveness or less (just throwing a number out there). So, plants get pollinated to lesser degrees with honey bees, and the leftover nectar for native bees often isn't enough to sustain populations meaningfully.
This is why when people say save the bees, the actual message of the campaign is geared towards native bees - not honey bees. There are capitalistic interests involved in keeping honey bees populations healthy and high to the detriment of local environments.
The things you are alleegic to aren't the things bees are making honey out of. We mostly have allergies to things that are broadcast spwaning obscene amounts their pollen like ragweed, mold, and grass, while bees use flowering plants to make their honey.
The hypothesis is that you are eating all of the flower allergens that are causing your allergies. The body usually doesn't react to things you eat so by consuming those allergens your body does have an immune response since it's part of food.
This is a fine point because I have oral allergy syndrome, which is my body violently reacting to bananas because of my ragweed allergy and my immune system being dumb as hell.
But also o do react less to flower pollen with a spoon of local honey a day so maybe it's just a big weird world we live in.