Submitted by: Stephanie Elson of The Benevolent Bee

Hooray for spring! Didn’t this past winter seem to last forever? I don’t know about you, but in our house, the cold and the snow, and the virus-after-virus-after-virus all seemed like it would never end.  Every time our toddler picked up yet another cold to generously share with us all, we would top off the jar of homemade honey-ginger-lemon syrup, and get ready to start the healing process. When we are feeling under the weather, drinking a warm tea with honey produced by our own backyard bees feels like one of the most healing, healthful natural remedies we can provide for ourselves. 


honey citrus syrups (photo credit: Laura Jane Brubaker)


Did you know that bees can travel up to 5 or even 6 miles from their hive in search of nectar? This means that today, our bees could equally be visiting witch hazel in Fenway gardens, forsythia in Forest Hills Cemetery, or the blooms in front of your apartment.  In our urban environment, we all share a backyard – especially from a bee’s perspective. The parks, gardens and other green spaces that brighten our streets and connect our neighborhoods create a collective urban feast for Boston’s honeybee residents.

Our family has a small apiary in Jamaica Plain, MA, where we harvest honey; collect and make things out of beeswax; and observe, learn and teach about bees and bee behavior. This summer, we will be the caretakers of six hives —  some in our backyard, and a few additional hives on other people’s property in Jamaica Plain.

Right now, the bees are just waking up from their winter slumber. In the winter, bees huddle together to keep warm, and only venture out of the hive out to stretch their wings on the rare warm day. There is no nectar for them to collect in the winter, so they rely on the honey and pollen that they collected and stored during the summer months. The life of the beekeeper in the winter is indoors as well – in the kitchen melting down wax, making candles and other beeswax products, and honey infused culinary delights. Now that the weather has turned, however, we are all heading outside more frequently. The bees have nectar and pollen to collect, and we have to check on them – making sure that they have the space they need, and that they’re healthy and happy. This summer, each hive should produce about 50 pounds of harvestable honey (although if it’s a sunny and bloom filled summer, like last year, they can produce much more – up to 250 pounds!). We will harvest this honey at the end of the summer, making sure to leave enough in the hive for the bees to survive on over the winter. Wax is harvested with the honey, when we crush the honey comb and strain the honey out.


A frame of honey


Using the products of our hives, we run The Benevolent Bee, selling small-batch, handcrafted creations.  We combine our own beeswax with herb infused oils that we craft ourselves, and make balms and salves that soothe, nourish and heal; we infuse the honey itself, and create delicious and healthful nectars; and we make a wide variety of 100% beeswax candles. 

St. John’s Wort Salve


And, since our bees could be collecting their nectar and pollen from throughout the Boston area — including from the flowering plants in your yard – our honey is some of the most local honey you can find. Stop by our table at Herbstalk for a free copy of our recipe for a healing honey-ginger-lemon syrup (so delicious, even when you’re not sick!) and pick up some bee products from your backyard benevolent bees!

Bee well and happy spring,

~Stephanie, Emile and Clara Bruneau

In choosing borage to be the Herbstalk plant of the year, I did not know how deeply I would be needing its healing gifts. After last week’s events, those of us living in the Boston area were grieved by the violence occurring in our beloved city. Like so many here, my heart has been heavy from sadness. When I first heard news of the bombings, I went home, mixed borage leaves with hawthorn, linden, and violet, and drank the tea with some dear friends. I can’t say that it lifted the shock and sadness that we all felt, but it was certainly comforting and calming to sip the tea.

Taking borage flower essence is also helpful in times of distress, fear, or worry since the essence offers a sense of safety and courage, and helps to chase away depression.

Dried borage leaf and flower essence


If you do not yet have borage in your life, then consider adding this bright, cheery flower to your yard or garden containers. It is very easy to grow, adapts to many soil types, and bees adore the flowers. Borage will self-seed readily, so plan on having it around for years to come (or forever….)

Here’s a few ideas on how to use borage:

• Mix the dried leaves with other herbs such as violet, tulsi, linden, oats, or hawthorn to create a heart-soothing and nervine tea.
• The leaves and flowers have a refreshing cucumber flavor and can be added raw to salads. (The younger leaves are preferable).
• Do as the British do, and add the leaves or flowers to a Pimm’s cocktail: beautiful and refreshing.
• Or, for a non-alcoholic treat, place fresh chopped leaves and flowers in cold water and let them steep overnight. You will end up with a refreshing and restorative infusion with a pleasant cucumber flavor.
• The young leaves can also be cooked into borage soup. Here’s a simple recipe to try.
• Steep dried or fresh borage in wine for a day or two to create a merry beverage. It’s even better if you float a fresh flower on top.
• Due to its cooling nature borage leaves may also be used externally as an anti-inflammatory poultice on itchy skin, rashes or eczema.

Cautions and considerations: Borage, like its family member, comfrey, contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which in very high doses over long periods of time can effect the liver. Like many foods and medicines you do not want to over-do it: please enjoy borage in moderate amounts and treat the plant with common sense and care.

One final thought: fittingly, borage is also called Star Flower. I think this is a significant part of its medicine, for just gazing at the brilliant blue celestial flowers reminds me that we all are made up of the same stuff as the stars of the sky. And that no matter what earthly events may shake us to the core and cause us sorrow, borage offers us solace and hope.

Young borage plant

Ego Borago Guadia semper ago.
I, Borage, bring always courage.




For this year’s Herbstalk we decided to choose one herb to feature throughout the event.  We wanted an herb that is uplifting and joyful, spirited and beautiful, one that would serve as a symbol for the whole gathering. And so what could be more appropriate than the happy-spirited, star-flowered, and prolificly-growing borage plant?…

Borage (Borago officinalis) is native to the Mediterranean and Middle East, and is also commonly grown and used throughout Europe. Here in the U.S. it is widely known for its lovely flowers, but is not so well known for its medicinal properties. By choosing borage for Herbstalk we hoped to shed some light on its many healing virtues since this bright beauty has many gifts to offer, and favorably acts on both the human body and emotions.

Borage is traditionally known to be a plant of gladness, with a unique ability to bestow not only joy, but courage. Floated in the wine cups of Crusaders before they went off to the battlefield, borage was believed to help overcome fear and embolden the heart.

Borago officinalis. Watercolor by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (about 1568).


Though most of us are no longer galloping off into battle, borage can be very useful for our modern-day battles, and particularly for urban stresses and worries.

The leaves of borage are very nutritive and contain silicon, potassium, and calcium. Just tasting the tea gives a clue of its mineral content – the salty, mineral-rich taste is quite perceptive. Because of this mineral content, borage, like many other deeply nutritive nervine tonics (i.e., nettles and oatstraw) have a rebuilding and tonifying effect on the whole nervous system. As Mrs. Grieve writes in A Modern Herbal, “It is to these saline qualities that the wholesome invigorating properties of Borage are supposed to be due.”

Borage also assists people who have become burnt-out or exhausted by over-work and stress. It is calming, cooling and restorative.  And although it is not a traditional use, I feel that borage is a good herb for city people to turn to when there are too many auditory stresses. Borage seems to be good for soothing sensitive folks who are surrounded by sirens, horns, traffic noises, and electronic rings. The way that borage nourishes the nervous system is effective in soothing frazzled nerves in an over-stimulated and noisy environment.

The English herbalist John Gerard referred to borage’s uplifting and antidepressant properties, writing that: “The leaves and floures of Borrage put into wine make men and women glad and merry, driving away all sadnesse, dulnesse, and melancholy.”


Borage: Part II, will be posted on Wednesday….



Submitted by Steph Zabel of Flowerfolk Herbal Apothecary.

Submitted by Michael Blackmore of Mad Crow Herbals



Hello Herbstalkians!…? Herbstalkites? Herbstalkers? ….Oh, just Hey You!

Welcome to the Herbstalk blog where we’ll be presenting posts from the folks who run Herbstalk, the vendors, and the teachers.

Last year, I had the privilege of teaching one of the first classes taught at Herbstalk, on honey, and by popular demand I’ll be teaching an expanded version again this year. And in the year in between I’ve been having a blast teaching, writing and exploring all kinds of herbal wonders including tree medicine, essential oils, and salves – and of course even more about honey. But one of the things I’ve been having the most fun with lately is Oxymels.

Sometimes I think the name Oxymel sounds like 50’s children’s show puppet. (“Oh, Oxymel when will you learn?”) But what it is actually is a mixture of honey and vinegar that has its roots all the way back in ancient Greek medicine.

A plain Oxymel can be as simple as mixing 4 parts honey with 1 part of vinegar (apple cider vinegar being the preferred one in most herby circles) or just 1 part of each and take that as a simple tonic. It’s refreshing, energizing, and good for fevers and respiratory issues. You can gargle with it for sore throats and coughs. Or use it as a base for cough syrups.

But Oxymels can also be used as the menstruum (solvent for extracting) for plant medicines just like tinctures but with Oxymel instead of alcohol/water mixtures. They are great to use for folks who can’t have, or don’t want, alcohol. Even though I work with alcohol-based tinctures regularly (and make some pretty amazing ones) I tend to philosophically like the non-alcohol ones better. The body as a whole treats alcohol like a toxin and the notion of not adding to that toxic load when healing has a lot of appeal to me.

I’ve been focusing lately on make nourishing Oxymel tonics like these:

 

The one on the left with the lovely dark color is brewing a seaweed mix of digitata kelp, alaria, and longicruris kelp. Seaweeds are just amazing nutritional powerhouses packed with vitamins and minerals. But frankly, I find most seaweed (other than dulse) pretty unpalatable. Straight up seaweed vinegars are great for extracting that nutritional goodness, but are very much an acquired taste that I haven’t yet acquired…. but an Oxymel is another matter and should make for a wonderful nutrient-filled health tonic.

The one on the right with the lovely golden color is brewing a mix of Red Clover, Dandelion leaf and Nettles which I’m thinking of as a spring cleanse tonic. Red Clover and Dandelion are classic spring herbs to cleanse the system and Nettles are a classic bit of nutritional support with some cleansing power as well – making this a great spring cleansing tonic.

How I made these was to mix equal parts of honey and apple cider vinegar in a big measuring cup and stir until well blended. Since I was working with dried plants, I filled each pint jar about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way full with the respective plant materials, added the Oxymel to the top of the jar, and stirred well to get out any air bubbles. You can make larger sizes of course, but I like using pints for my first round of experiments. Then I put some wax paper over the top and screw the lid on – because the wax paper will help protect the metal from the vinegar and prevent rusting. And of course I label them with the ingredients and the date they were made. Now I’m letting them sit for about 4 to 6 weeks, shaking gently every day. Then in early May I’ll press out the liquid and enjoy the magic.

I hope this is wetting your appetite a bit for the wonders of Herbstalk in June. I’m looking forward to seeing you all there!