Sweetness and Light

A new book Sweetness & Light: the Mysterious History of the Honey Bee by Hattie Ellis is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £16.99. There's a short article by the author in today's Scotsman newspaper in which the author says she came across a shop in Paris selling specialist honeys touting particular qualities:

Acacia is meant to be calming, lavender to ease respiratory problems such as coughs, rosemary is said to stimulate digestion while lime blossom aids sleep. Whether or not all this is true, customers return again and again to refill their 5kg pails and take the shop’s recommended “dose” of five teaspoonfuls a day. Since some of these customers are now nearly as old as the shop, which opened in 1898, perhaps honey really is an elixir of life.