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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 11, 



passed a ringing resolution endorsing planting for honey 

 alone, also urging our Legislature and various park commis- 

 sioners, and all citizens of our State, to use their entire in- 

 fluence in propagating our most beautiful and useful lindens. 

 Prof. Cook, on page 177, has given some very fine sug- 

 gestions, and it is hoped others may follow. I think Mr. 

 Doolittle, on page 188, gave about the correct answer to 

 Query No. 7, in bee-parlance : The National hive is over- 

 stocked with drones, and they are devouring all the honey. 



Zionsville, Ind. 



POISONOUS HONEY— DO BEES GATHER IT? 



SKEPTICAL ABOUT POISONOUS HONEY. 



I have been much interested in the articles which have 

 appeared in the American Bee Journal of late respecting pois- 

 onous honey. It is a subject in which I have been much in- 

 terested for many years, and to which I have given no little 

 attention. I have also received from time to time specimens 

 of the so-called poisonous honey, and so have had good oppor- 

 tunity to examine and test it. I must say that I am very 

 skeptical in regard to the matter. It is so easy to see how 

 reports of poisonous honey would get abroad without any real 

 facts to support them, that I think that we may all be cau- 

 tious in coming to conclusions in this matter. 



Probably what gave rise to this opinion more than any 

 other one thing was the old account from Xenophon, I think, 

 of soldiers in the old days eating poisinous honey and becom- 

 ing very sick. I much question if this account should have 

 the least influence in forming the opinion of any careful in- 

 vestigator. I can very readily understand how soldiers might 

 be very generally and very seriously ill by eatiug even the 

 best of honey. I know of an excellent case in point : At the 

 Michigan Agricultural College the students have always been 

 required to labor upon the farm. In the early days, I think 

 it was in the winter of 1858, the students were so fortunate, 

 or perhaps unfortunate, as to cut a bee-tree well filled with 

 honey. It was just before noon, and as is generally the case 

 of young men. all were very hungry. It was needless to say 

 that the honey tasted very good, and that the students iu- 

 dulged their appetites without let or hindrance. It is just as 

 true that at the recitation that afternoon there were very few 

 students. There were, however, two or three score of very 

 sick young men ; many of them thought surely their last days 

 had come. Had there been some Xenophon present, we 

 should no doubt have had a thrilling account of poisonous 

 honey. 



Another reason that has had its influence in giving cur- 

 rency to the opinion that honey from certain flowers is pois- 

 onous, comes from the fact that certain plants are poisonous ; 

 thus people would easily reason that if the foliage was pois- 

 ons to animals eating it, or if it poisoned those who rubbed 

 against it, why, of course, the honey or the pollen would be 

 poisonous to bees ! Thus, with no fact to support the theory, 

 the theory is set afloat to be copied annually or oftener into 

 some paper, and thus the view becomes established in our lit- 

 erature as a fact. There is as little ground for the conclu- 

 sion in this case as in the other. 



We can well see how that in the development of any plant 

 poisonous qualities would be of service, and through the prin- 

 ciple of " natural selection" might be secured by the plant. 

 We see just such developments in the poisonous hairs and 

 secretion of insects which serve to protect them from their 

 enemies. Thus it would be of advantage to plants to secrete 

 poisonous substances within the substance of their leaves or 

 branches. This, however, would not be at all true in case of 

 the pollen or nectar. It is an advantage, not a disadvantage, 

 for the bees and other insects to come and gather the pollen 

 or the nectar. Thus, while a plant might secrete poison in 



its leaves and foliage, it could never do so on the principle of 

 " natural selection " in its pollen and nectar. The flower 

 wants to attract the sweet-loving insects and foster their 

 visits in quest of nectar or pollen, and so we should never ex- 

 pect to find either the nectar or the pollen poisonous, at least 

 to insects, whose friendly visits are always of service to the 

 flowers. We see, then, that in the physiology of plants we 

 can easily explain the presence of poison in twig and foliage, 

 but to fiud it in nectar and pollen would be entirely excep- 

 tional and inexplicable. 



Another argument in favor of the poisonous qualities of 

 some honey comes from actual cases often reported by physi- 

 cians and the press. These cases are generally from regions 

 where the mountain laurel or kalmia latifolia grows. The 

 fact that this plant is said to be poisonous to stock might 

 naturally lead to the opinion that the honey from it would be 

 poisonous as explained above. There are very good reasons 

 to doubt the accuracy of these observations and reports. It 

 is an unquestioned fact that in many regions along the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains this mountain laurel is very abundant, and 

 is visited profusely by the bees. Yet there is never any 

 trouble from poisonous honey. 



As we have already seen, even the best of honey, especially 

 if eaten in undue quantities, may make any person sick, and 

 often will make some people always sick. So we see it is easy 

 to account for the sickness without deciding that the honey is 

 necessarily poisonous. I have often, myself, known of cases 

 where people have been made deathly sick by taking only a 

 few teaspoonfuls of honey, and that of the best quality — 

 honey that I could eat ad Ubilum without the least injurious 

 effect. Suppose, then, that a person should eat heartily of 

 honey in the region of the mountain laurel bloom ; it is easy 

 to see how some not over-scrupulous or over-cautious physician 

 might start a first-class sensational report regarding poisonous 

 honey. 



But I have other evidence which to me is more conclusive 

 than any yet offered. While in Michigan I received a large 

 number of samples of the so-called poisonous honey ; some of 

 them were as white and beautiful as the white clover honey, and 

 as agreeable to the taste ; while others were bitter, and some 

 of it dark as well as ill-flavored. In every case I ate freely 

 of this honey, and according to reports am alive yet. I even 

 went farther than this. I took the great risk to ask my 

 friends to eat of this honey, and in no case was there the 

 least ill effects from it. I have thus had honey from Pennsyl- 

 vania, Eastern Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina, 

 all of which was reported to be poisonous, and all of which, 

 to my certain knowledge, was as wholesome as any honey. 



Of course, we ought not to be dogmatic in any such mat- 

 ter. It is very easy for any of us to be mistaken, but from the 

 facts given above, I have come to the conclusion that we need 

 more and better evidence than we have yet had before we de- 

 cide positively that the flowers secrete poisonous nectar. 



To sum up : It is easy to see how reports of poisonous 

 honey have become current from the very nature of honey, 

 and without any basis of fact. It is also easy to see how that 

 people given to theorizing might conclude that honey from 

 certain flowers was poisonous without any real reason for 

 doing so. Again, the fact that many of the so-called poison- 

 ous plants abound in regions where poisonous honey is never 

 reported, gives a "black eye" to this theory. Lastly, actual 

 tests of the very honey pronounced poisonous have failed to 

 show the presence of poison. A. J. Cook. 



Claremont, Calif. 



PROBABLY POISONOUS POLLEN. 



The communication from A. D. Watson, on page 220, on 

 the subject of mountain laurel, was read with great interest. 

 I have just learned from an old resident of this county, who is 

 a close observer, of a case of poisoning from eating honey 



