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PHOTOS: Girls selling fruit at the Auburn Mandarin Festival, honey bee, beekeeper tending to his honey bees in Seal Beach, California.

It’s springtime, the flowers are in bloom, and everything is beautiful. But then there’s that sneezing problem. Hay fever and allergies bring on the miserable feeling that your head is spinning, you can’t breathe normally, your nose is running or your sinuses are clogged up.  It’s the time of year when pharmacies stock up on extra supplies of decongestants and antihistamines.  For those who would rather try to stick with natural remedies, you’ve probably heard that eating local honey can help curb your symptoms.

While many believe and continue to swear by the concept that eating local honey can help springtime allergies, there’s a study that disputes this claim. When bees fly from one flower to the next and are covered in pollen spores, those spores are transferred into the honey. Eating a spoonful a day can build up immunity through gradual exposure to the local allergens that make life so miserable for allergy sufferers, so the theory goes.

University of Connecticut Health Center researchers put that theory to the test and their results were surprising. They found that the honey had no such effect.  Subjects were randomly split into three groups–one ate a tablespoonful daily of locally collected, unpasteurized and unfiltered honey; one group ate commercial honey; and a third group ate a corn syrup placebo with synthetic honey flavoring.

After tracking the subjects’ symptoms for months, the scientists found that neither of the honey groups saw improvements over the placebo group. While the study contends that there’s no evidence that local honey relieves allergy symptoms, if you like honey anyway, go ahead and enjoy!

Among studies related to allergies, another finds that 10 ounces of mandarin juice contains as much synephrine as a Sudafed decongestant tablet. You might want to try some mandarin oranges as part of your allergy regimen.