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

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....