‘Mad honey’: Türkiye’s elixir with dark side

RİZE

Its fans swear it can cure heart palpitations, dodgy stomachs and even impotence. Yet every year hundreds of people end up in hospital after gorging themselves on Türkiye’s "mad honey.”

But beekeeper Bayram Demirciler is adamant the honey his bees make high in the mountains above the Black Sea "has never caused any problems.”

In good years his hives in the northern province of Rize produce up to 350 kilos of "mad" rhododendron honey.

The lush green Pontic Alps is home to a subspecies of rhododendron whose purple flowers drip with pollen that give "mad honey" its color. They also contain a neurotoxin called grayanotoxin which can slow the heartbeat and that also packs a hallucinogenic punch.

"This honey is very good for people with hypertension," said Mustafa Oğuz Alparslan, whose hives, protected from sweet-toothed bears by an electric fence, are even higher up the mountains at 1,400 meters.

But eat too much and "it can also cause a rapid fall in blood pressure,” warned the beekeeper, who said he always "tests his honey as it takes it out the hive.”

Doctors say the honey can slow the flow of blood to the brain, causing dizziness, fainting and even hallucinations.

The honey also figured in Agatha Christie's novel, "A Haunting in Venice,” filmed last year by Kenneth Branagh.

The "Queen of Crime,” who wrote part of "Murder on the Orient Express" in Istanbul, had Rowena Drake kill her own daughter with it and even used it to give Belgian detective Hercule Poirot visions.

The honey can even put beasts on their back. A young brown bear made headlines in August 2022 when he was found unconscious near hives in Düzce at the other end of the Black Sea region. It had keeled over after overindulging on "mad honey.”

The same month a bus driver travelling between Rize and Trabzon blamed the honey for him passing out and crashing into cars at a traffic light.

In his hospital in Trabzon, Professor Abdülkadir Gündüz treats between "30 and 100" people who have been knocked sideways by the honey in bad years.

The doctor said it was "possible that there are thousands of cases" across the wider region.

"If we have a sunny May and June, the bees will feast on the rhododendrons," making the honey even stronger, said Gündüz, who has long researched the subject.

One particular detail pricked his interest. "More than 80 percent of the intoxicated patients are men over 50. Some believe [the honey) ups their sexual performance," he said.