250 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



Septenibe,i 



(From The Southliind Queen. 



POISON HONEY. 



BY DR. W. M. STBLL. 



Aftef reading the articles in the 

 American Bee Journal about Moun- 

 tain Laurel, I deciHed to make an ex- 

 periment for ni}' own sati.«factiou, and 

 seeing a great many goats here, eating 

 the leaves of this plant, a thought 

 struck me about its poisonous effects 

 on goat's milk, for this is the recourse 

 that we have for obtaining milk here, 

 as the mountains are so high dnd bro- 

 ken that it is impossible to have cows. 



Now, the great question ; is the 

 honey poison that the bees gather 

 from Laurel? and is the milk poison 

 from goats that feed on Laurel? After 

 watching the goats nibling so raven- 

 ously on this bush, I asked the herder 

 if he did not know that this plant was 

 poison. He said no, to the contrar}^ 

 that they often drove the goats to 

 them, and besides that it was a great 

 medical plant — for nervous headache 

 they would bruise a leaf and bind it 

 to the temples ; for all kinds of ulcer- 

 ating sores would treat likewise. I 

 asked him if he ever took any inward- 

 ly, and he said that he had, but it 

 produced pain and vomiting, also 

 stated that burros and mules would 

 not eat it. I, at once, gathered some 

 flowers and leaves to perform an ex- 

 periment upon the honey bee, as the 

 opinion seemed to differ very much in 

 regard to the poison honey. In read- 

 ing these articles, 1 failed to see any 

 direct experiment performed by these 

 parties, to prove that honey is or is 

 not poison when gathered from Moun 

 tain Laurel, though some stated that 

 the hills were covered with this plant, 

 and they never knew of any bad ef- 



fects produced by eating honey when 

 it was in full blossom, while others 

 made the contrary statement. 



The following is the result of my 

 experiment: I bruised, iu a wedge- 

 wood m(M-tar, eight ounces each, leaves 

 and fresh flowers, adding twenty 

 ounces of water and twelve ounces of 

 dilute alcohol to extract its virtue. 

 This was gently boiled down to about 

 sixteen ounces, which had a strong, 

 sweetish, repugnant taste. I then 

 mixed one ounce of this decoction 

 with eight of dilute honey ; this was 

 given to the bees at 6 o'clock, p. m., 

 iu a simplicity feeder, which was 

 placed between the frames in the brood 

 chamber. Will state that this colony 

 was especially prepared for the exper- 

 inaent, having one frame only with 

 brood (no honey), and four perfectly 

 empty ones; the hive was closed and 

 bees confined for two days before the 

 experiment, to allow sufficient time 

 for them to digest all honey in their 

 stomachs. The next morning I pro- 

 vided myself with a glass graduate 

 and a small suction dropper. I felt 

 certain when opening the cover that I 

 would find my little workers all dead 

 in a pile,- but to my great surprise, on 

 lifting the enamel cloth to one side, 

 they had their little heads sticking 

 straight up, and eyes as bright as dia- 

 monds. On examining further, found 

 the feeder empty and almost dry — 

 they had deposited this poison honey in 

 the combs — with the dropper, I sucked 

 out two ounces of this honey (from 

 the cells in the comb), which was 

 taken in their honey sacs, from the 

 feeder, just the same way as they do 

 from the natural flowers ; of course 

 the distance was very short, but the 

 honey, without a doubt, underwent 



