656 
POISONOUS HONEY 
the breadth of an inch, they will try to 
press in at the point they have been accus¬ 
tomed to use, and will find the open part 
only after more or less searching. 
Occasionally the “playflight” is mistaken 
for a case of robbing. There are, however, 
two important differences. When bees are 
making a flight of orientation there are no 
fighting bees, as in a case of robbing. But 
in a genuine case of robbing when a colony 
has been overpowered, the robbers will fly 
around in front of the entrance in a man¬ 
ner very similar to orienting bees. Sec¬ 
ondly, a “playflight” is of short duration. 
With robbing there is no let-up. If the 
flight before the front of the hive con¬ 
tinues for more than fifteen minutes, rob¬ 
bing is indicated; and the entrance should 
be treated as recommended under Bobbing. 
If the supposed robbing after treatment 
stops suddenly, it may be assumed that 
the bees were only at play. 
POISONED BROOD.— See Fruit Blos¬ 
soms and Foul Brood. 
POISONOUS HONEY.— The earliest ac¬ 
count on record of honey causing sickness is 
given by Xenophon in the fourth book of 
the Anabasis. It occurred 400 B. C., during 
the memorable retreat of the Ten Thousand, 
in the mountainous country of the Colchians, 
in the province now called Trebizond bor¬ 
dering on the Black Sea. A literal trans¬ 
lation of Xenophon’s description is as fol¬ 
lows: “The number of beehives was ex¬ 
traordinary, and all of the soldiers who ate 
of the combs lost their senses, vomited, and 
were affected with purging, and none of 
them were able to stand upright. Those 
who had eaten little were like men intoxi¬ 
cated; those who had eaten much were 
like madmen, and some like persons at 
the point of death. They lay upon the 
ground in consequence, in great numbers, 
as if there had been a defeat; and there 
was general dejection. The next day no 
one of them was found dead; and they re¬ 
covered their senses about the same hour 
that they lost them on the preceding day; 
and on the third and fourth day they got 
up as if after having taken physic.” The 
passage is given entire, as it has probably 
done more to establish a general belief that 
certain kinds of honey are poisonous than 
any other account ever written. The an¬ 
cients believed that this honey was gath¬ 
ered from a species of Rhododendron, prob¬ 
ably R. pontica. 
It is noteworthy that the honey was ob¬ 
tained from beehives, not from trees or 
hollows in the rocks. It may be doubted 
if the symptoms described by Xenophon 
are strictly accurate, altlio there can be no 
doubt that the honey caused nausea and 
purging. Apparently it did not affect the 
natives in a similar manner. The Greek 
soldiers plundered the Colcliian villages, 
and the probability is that they ate exces¬ 
sively of unripe honey as the number of 
hives was very large. It does not necessar¬ 
ily follow that the honey was actually pois¬ 
onous. 
Poisonous honey in the United States 
was reported first by Barton, an early 
American botanist, in 1794. Since then 
poisonous honey has been repeatedly re¬ 
ported in the mountains of New Jersey, 
Virginia, and North Carolina. The honey, 
it is believed, is gathered from the moun¬ 
tain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) and the Rho¬ 
dodendrons. Mountain laurel is often 
called poison ivy in Tennessee and Ala¬ 
bama; poison laurel in Alabama, and ivy 
in Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro¬ 
lina, Mississippi, and Maryland. 
In 1921 a beekeeper living at Morgan- 
ton, North Carolina, described conditions 
in that locality as follows: “There are 
districts in western North Carolina in 
which the so-called “poison honey” is pro¬ 
duced. About one-third of this county 
(Burke) can not be used for this reason. 
I have known beekeepers deliberately to 
throw hundreds of pounds of honey into 
the streams. As to the effects, I have seen 
and have also personally experienced the 
acute sickness which this honey produces. 
Within a few minutes after it is eaten a 
staggering, deathly nauseous sensation is 
experienced which lasts several hours. 
While I have seen whole families rolling in 
their clooryards I have never known of any 
fatal results. But the poisonous honey is 
eaten by bees year after year without in¬ 
jury. It is beieved that the poisonous hon¬ 
ey has .become more abundant in recent 
years due to the spreading of ivy over 
areas which have been cleared of forest. 
