They made their mark on Shark Tank’s most recent season, earning themselves a deal with Barbara Corcoran who invested $200,000 to help build their business. The Johnsons have become well-known at New Jersey and New York farmer’s markets. That the company’s seen success isn’t at all surprising. They launched Zach & Zoë Sweet Bee Farm in 2016. They’d be giving their children a taste of professional responsibility and giving their honey an edge. By the following spring, he displayed none of the symptoms his family had come to associate with him and warmer weather, he no longer needed to take prescription medication.īeing witness to honey’s healing properties firsthand sparked a business idea for the Johnsons: infusing their raw local honey with superfoods. In Zach’s case, all of the elements worked in his favor. But if the pollen you’re allergic to is the one your local bees are collecting, and if the honey contains an effective concentration of pollen, she doesn’t discourage the practice. When it comes to allergies, she stresses medical immunotherapy, such as allergy shots, as a more effective way to get relief. “You're building up your tolerance,” explains Cascya Charlot, MD, medical director of Allergy and Asthma Care of Brooklyn. By consuming it, people who live in the area are essentially desensitizing themselves with small amounts of the allergy-causing pollen. “Honey can introduce the body to natural allergens,” Kam explains, as long as it’s local, ideally “within a 90-mile radius.” The honey that bees produce contains traces of the pollen from local plants and crops. Zoë and Zach Johnson in front of their family’s beehives.

Soboba beekeeper