Turkey's 'mad honey' knocks out even bears

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 Turkey's "mad honey."

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

In good years his hives in Rize province, northeast Turkey, produce up to 350 kilos of "mad" rhododendron honey.

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

"This honey is very good for people with hypertension," said Mustafa Oguz Alparslan, whose hives - protected from 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," he warned.

Doctors - who recognize its virtues in small doses - say the honey can slow the flow of blood to the brain, causing dizziness, fainting and even hallucinations.

Intoxication with "mad honey" was even documented in ancient times.

The Greek historian Strabo, born in the region, said three of Pompey's Roman cohorts were put out of action by allies of the Pontian king Mithridates who left "pots of mad honey" in their path.

And it 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.

It can even put beasts on their back. A young brown bear was found unconscious near hives in Duzce province at the other end of Turkey's Black Sea in August 2022.

It had keeled over after overindulging on "mad honey."

In his hospital in Trabzon, a professor, Abdulkadir Gunduz, treats between "30 and 100" people who have been knocked sideways by the honey in bad years.

It was "possible that there are thousands of cases" across the wider region, he said.

"If we have a sunny May and June, the bees will feast on the rhododendrons," making the honey even stronger, Gunduz said.

One 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.

In his shop in Cayeli, 20 kilometers from Rize, Necmettin Colak recommends customers "take a soup spoon of the honey on an empty stomach."

For more mature clients in search of a sexual pick-me-up, he suggests his chestnut honey instead, which he swears is "more efficient.".

He stores his "mad honey" for months to allow its more problematic attributes to dissipate before tasting it himself and selling it at 55 euros (HK$466) a kilo.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE