From Biological Weapon to Organic Viagra: the Craze for 'Mad Honey'

Mad Honey, more scientifically known as grayanotoxin, is a toxic substance humans have been dealing with for thousands of years.

The way how it is created is quite simple. A bee takes nectar from a toxic rhododendron plant (available in Turkey, the United States, British Columbia and the UK). The toxic substance is then deposited at a beehive.

The odds of getting any ill-effects from this substance, from the honey at your local grocery store, are pretty much nill. By the time commercial honey is diluted the amount of material from a rhododendron is extremely low or non-existent.

However, if you buy honey from a local beehive that happens to be near a large amount of rhododendron, the risk goes up.

Mad Honey Versus the Roman Legions

Ancient records record that “mad honey” was used as an early biological weapon in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It's believable - the effect of mad honey could bring down an army. In 401 BC, Xenophon, an Athenian military commander fighting against the Persian King Ataxerxes II, encountered the substance. He wrote:

"Here, generally speaking, there was nothing to excite their wonderment, but the numbers of bee-hives were indeed astonishing, and so were certain properties of the honey. The effect upon the soldiers who tasted the combs was, that they all went for the nonce quite off their heads, and suffered from vomiting and diarrhea, with a total inability to stand steady on their legs.

A small dose produced a condition not unlike violent drunkenness, a large one an attack very like a fit of madness, and some dropped down, apparently at death's door. So they lay, hundreds of them, as if there had been a great defeat, a prey to the cruelest despondency.

But the next day, none had died; and almost at the same hour of the day at which they had eaten they recovered their senses, and on the third or fourth day got on their legs again like convalescents after a severe course of medical treatment.

Now, this particular case doesn’t sound like an intentional biological attack (although the Persians were probably glad the honey had the effect that it did). But in 67 BC there is a record of it being used intentionally in warfare by King Mithradates IV of north-east Anatolia, Turkey against a Roman army led by Pompey the Great.

As paraphrased in an article in the modern day journal Clincial Toxicology what happened is: “On the advice of his chief adviser, the Greek physician Kateuas, Mithradates IV made a tactical retreat leaving mad honey containing honey combs in the path of the advancing Roman troops who consumed the honey. The Romans, thus incapacitated, were easily overcome.”

Mad Honey Sex

In an article titled “Mad Honey Sex: Therapeutic Misadventures From an Ancient Biological Weapon,” a team of scientists from Gazi University in Turkey writes that between 2002 and 2008 they have seen 21 cases of mad honey poisoning at their hospital.

“Patients are overwhelmingly men,” they said, and middle aged (average age 55 years); something which left them puzzled, until they talked to 10 local beekeepers and found out why this might be. “Local beekeepers ranked sexual performance enhancement as the most common reason for therapeutic mad honey consumption in men aged 41 through 60 years.”

The scientists conclude, “A dietary and travel history should be included in the assessment of middle-aged men presenting with bradycardia and hypotension. A mad honey therapeutic misadventure may be the cause.”

Somewhere out there, in the Ancient Greek afterlife, Xenophon must be scratching his head.

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Owen Jarus (follow me: e-mail or )

Last three pieces by this author:

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Owen Jarus is a freelance writer based in Toronto ,Canada. He has written articles on archaeology for a variety of media outlets including The Canadian Press newswire (CP), U of T Magazine, The Mississauga News and The Guelph Mercury. Education: BA from the University of Toronto in History, Geography and Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations.