Mel Anhang

[Kiva Rose]

Honey makes a superior burn and wound dressing (preventing and resolving infection, even with antibiotic resistant infections). It also excels at keeping inflammation to a manageable level and seems to help the regeneration of new tissue.

Next step is to use herbal honeys for wound and burn dressings! If raw honey is already an amazing treatment then adding the further healing properties of herbs can only improve the mix, right?

So here’s a basic recipe for an herbal honey and some ideas for herbs to use especially for wound and burn dressings. You can, of course, eat the honey as well in order to integrate healing into the body, and because they taste good.

Fresh Herb Infused Honey

1 glass jar with lid

enough raw, preferably local, honey to fill the jar

enough fresh plant matter to fill the jar (less for roots, more for flowers)

a chopstick or stick

Fill the jar, more or less, with roughly chopped (or smushed, for berries) plant matter. Then, drench the plants with slightly warmed (enough to be pourable) honey until almost full. Stir with stick or chopstick until thoroughly mixed. Then poke at the mixture to release any remaining air bubbles. Top off with more honey.

Let sit for a few to 6 weeks in a warm place or until the honey takes on the taste and fragrance of the herb. If the herb you used is not terribly palatable, then strain it off and preserve the honey. Otherwise, I like to keep the herb in the honey to nibble on, use in food, etc. If you live in a humid, moldy climate you may want to either keep the jar in the fridge or add some (as you like, any amount will help preserve it) brandy or rum to the mix. I’ve never had a problem with my honeys going off, but some people do with fresh plants.

Dried Herb Infused Honey

1 glass jar with lid

enough raw, preferably local, honey to fill the jar

enough dried plant matter to fill the jar about a third of the way (less for roots, more for flowers)

a chopstick or stick

If you have tough roots or woody plant matter to deal with you may want grind it up a bit to expose more cellular surface to the honey. For flowers or leaves just break down with you hands or a mortar and pestle to a fairly regular cut sifted kind of texture. Place herbs in jar, cover with honey, stir and poke as above. Top off with more honey and let sit, finish just as above. See, easy.

Honey Paste Variation: If you use a finely ground herb to mix with the honey you can just stir it together and make a lovely honey paste, then you don’t want to strain at all, but keep the plant in the honey. You may also want to use a higher proportion of herb to honey in this case, at it will thicken with time. You can then make little honey balls called pastilles and roll them in some herbal powder (licorice is popular) and let them dry for a few days. They make excellent cough drops and slow release herbal pills. Or you can just keep it as a paste to apply directly, eat directly or add to tea. This preserves the herb indefinitely and is an excellent vehicle for the whole plant. Fragrant roots such as Ginger, Osha, Sweet Flag, Echinacea etc all do very well this way. Dried berries are also great this way.

Favorite Herbal Honeys

Rose petal Honey - It tastes AMAZING, it’s cooling and relaxing. Externally, it’s amazing for burns and infections of all kinds (Is not a naturally honey)

Bee Balm Flower Honey – Mmm, spicy, sweet, invigorating and relaxing. Another great anti-infective and burn soother. Great internally for coughs, sore throats and lung stuff. And basically anything else that Bee Balm is normally good for.

Ginger Root Honey – Warming, stimulating and especially good for old wounds that refuse to heal.

Elderberry Honey – An old favorite! Great for immune modulation and energy as expected but also great externally for nearly any kind of wound or burn.

Rosehip Honey – This, and any other berry honey, makes an excellent tonic to build the blood and gently restore the nutritive balance of the body. Great for deficiency caused anemia and weakness.

Sage Honey – Extra nice for sore throats and lung stuff. Also very useful active infections.

Happy Girl Honey (inspired by Ananda): 1 part Goldenrod flowers, 1 part Lemon Balm and 1 part Ginger – A nice, tasty mood lifting winter survival honey.

Elder Mother Honey: 2 Part Elderberry, 1 Part Elderflowers, 1 Part Rosehips, 1/2 Part Osha & 1/4 Part Ginger or Sweet Flag

Great for viruses and immune stuff, especially bugs that settle in the lungs and never want to leave. It’s great even without the Osha. I really like this with at least some portion of rum or brandy.

Winter Root Honey: 1 Part Osha, 1 Part Sweet Root, 1 Part Wild Ginger & 1 Part Monarda Flowers

An adaptation of a Michael Moore suggestion. Strong, hot and sweat inducing.

Honey Paste Recipes

Bear Medicine Honey Paste

3 Part Elderflower, 1 Part Rosehips, 1/2 Part Osha, 1/2 Part Mallow & 1/4 part Lemon or Orange Peel

Make it nice and thick and suck on a little chunk when you start getting a scratchy throat in the Winter.

Briar Rose Deluxe Honey Paste

2 Parts Rose petals, 1 Part Rose hip, 1/4 Part Orange Peel, 1/4 Part Ginger

Nice on the sore throats, is nearly as good just made with powdered Rose petals and honey. You can spice it up more with Cardamon if you like.

Bactericidal activity of different honeys against pathogenic bacteria.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16099322&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus

RESULTS: Twelve of the 13 bacteria were inhibited by all honeys used in this study with only Serratia marcescens and the yeast Candida albicans not inhibited by the honeys. Little or no antibacterial activity was seen at honey concentrations <1%, with minimal inhibition at 5%. No honey was able to produce complete inhibition of bacterial growth. Although Medihoney and manuka had the overall best activity, the locally produced honeys had equivalent inhibitory activity for some, but not all, bacteria. CONCLUSIONS: Honeys other than those commercially available as antibacterial honeys can have equivalent antibacterial activity. These newly identified antibacterial honeys may prove to be a valuable source of future therapeutic honeys.

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