Just thinking about “mad honey” for some reason

Image 1: Honey bees in northern Turkey (source)
Image 2: Bee hives in northern Turkey (source)
Image 3: “Deli bal” - the Turkish variety of “mad honey” (source)
Image 4: Town in northern Turkey where honey is an important industry (source)

Deli bal - Hallucinogenic Turkish honey

An excerpt from Emma Bryce’s Modern Farmer piece on mad honey:

The dark, reddish, “mad honey,” known as deli bal in Turkey, contains an ingredient from rhododendron nectar called grayanotoxin — a natural neurotoxin that, even in small quantities, brings on light-headedness and sometimes, hallucinations. In the 1700s, the Black Sea region traded this potent produce with Europe, where the honey was infused with drinks to give boozers a greater high than alcohol could deliver.

When over-imbibed, however, the honey can cause low blood pressure and irregularities in the heartbeat that bring on nausea, numbness, blurred vision, fainting, potent hallucinations, seizures, and even death, in rare cases. (…)

“There are more than 700 different species [of rhododendron] in the world, but according to our knowledge just two or three include grayanotoxin in their nectars,” says SÁ¼leyman Turedi, a doctor at the Karadeniz Technical University School of Medicine in Trabzon, Turkey, who studies deli bal‘s effects and has witnessed more than 200 cases of mad honey poisoning. (…)

Although the product makes up only a tiny percentage of the Black Sea’s honey production, it’s long held a strong Turkish following. “People believe that this honey is a kind of medicine,” Turedi says. “They use it to treat hypertension, diabetes mellitus and some different stomach diseases. And also, some people use deli bal to improve their sexual performance.” (…)

The honey is taken in small amounts, sometimes boiled in milk, and consumed typically just before breakfast, he adds — not slathered on toast or stirred generously into tea the way normal honey would be. Its value to customers has given beekeepers an incentive to keep visiting those rhododendron fields and producing it alongside their normal honey products. (…)

Indeed, in 67 B.C. Roman soldiers invaded the Black Sea region under General Pompey’s command, and those loyal to the reigning King Mithridates secretly lined the Romans’ path with enticing chunks of mad honeycomb. The unwitting army ate these with gusto, as the story goes. Driven into an intoxicated stupor by the hallucinogenic honey, many of the flailing soldiers became easy prey, and were slain.

– From Emma Bryce. “The Strange History of ‘Mad Honey.’“ In Modern Farmer, 4 September 2014.

Here’s a view of the rhododendron species that provides the local Turkish honey bees with the chemical source for mad honey:

The species is Rhododendron ponticum (image source). The flower is the source of the grayanotoxin that gives mad honey its intoxicating effects.

Notice how lush and humid this region is. The “Black Sea littoral zone” is a very narrow strip of land that runs along the Black Sea coastline in northern Turkey. The sea helps to moderate the area, so that the ecoregion is a highly-localized microclimate and is much more mild and wet than the rest of Turkey and the Caucasus, which are often defined by semi-arid or barren steppe.