How Has Honey Been Used in Warfare?

Ancient armies set traps of hallucinogenic honey and mead to incapacitate their enemies. Learn how mad honey works in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/history-hallucinogenic-mad-honey-warfare.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio Hey brain Stuff
laurin volgeban in here. In two thousand and eight, a
middle aged couple decided to spice things up by eating
raw honey gathered from near Turkey's Black Sea, and then
ended up in the hospital with symptoms that mimiced heart attacks.

(00:23):
The culprit mad honey poisoning a little known ailment that
has brought down ancient armies and in modern times been
rumored to have a hallucinogenic effect that increases sexual performance.
So called mad honey is produced by bees that ingest
the nectar of poisonous plants, specifically ones that contain gray anatoxins.

(00:47):
These are neurotoxins that are found in various species in
the heather family, like rhododendrons azalias and mountain laurels. The
naturally toxic syrup reportedly tastes more bitter than normal honey,
and the toxic city is stronger in fresh honey gathered
in the springtime. Variants on mad honey have been found
in parts of Japan, Nepal, Brazil, North America, Europe, and

(01:09):
the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. Mad honey is
a razor's edge substance that can go from intoxicating to
lethal in just a few tablespoons, and because potency varies
from hive to hive, there's no sure way to tell
when enough is enough. In the case of the couple
who wound up in the emergency room, increasingly large doses

(01:32):
of the toxically tinged honey caused acute inferior myocardial infarctions
aka heart irregularities. While typically not fatal, mad honey poisoning
doesn't sound fun with symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive sweating,
and dizziness. In rare cases, you could be looking at convulsions,
low blood pressure, shock, and yes, heart trouble. Documentation of

(01:58):
this goes all the way back to four once, when
the ancient Greek commander Xenophon, returning with an army from Persia,
wrote of his men experiencing an accidental poisoning. Before the
article this episode is based on, has Stuffworks spoke with
Adrian Mayer, a research scholar in classics and history of
science at Stanford University with a specialization in ancient biological

(02:20):
and chemical warfare. She said Xenophon prided himself on choosing
healthy and safe campsites in hostile territory. He noted nothing
unusual about the campsite in Pontus, on the Black Sea
coast on northeast Turkey, but he did note quote an
extraordinary number of swarming bees, and said that his men

(02:40):
soon discovered the hives and gorged on the sweet treat
of wild honey. He was appalled when a soldier suddenly
behaved like crazed madmen and collapsed in mass. His entire
army was paralyzed and incapacitated for days, totally vulnerable to
possible enemy attack. Luckily for them and this was again

(03:01):
accidental and Xenophon's army recovered before they could be discovered.
But ancient armies did use mad honey as a weapon,
and quite effectively at that. Around sixty five BCE, King Mithriddes,
the sixth of Pontus set a trap for the invading
Roman army led by Pompy the Great. The Romans were

(03:22):
moving along the coast of the Black Sea in present
day northeast Turkey, the same area that Xenophon had been
traveling through a few hundred years before. Mithriddeses troops set
out poisonous mad honeycombs along the route. The Romans fell
for the tasty trap, and meth Briddes's army attacked and
killed about a thousand of them once they had been
rendered helpless by the honey. Eventually, Pompey defeated him and

(03:46):
ended his expanse into Rome's territories. Supposedly, mith Briddes died
after being overthrown by his son under guard. He tried
to kill himself with poison, but was inured to it.
After years of mild preventive doses, he finally had to
ask a garb to run them through. There are also
instances of mad honey being used to make mead as

(04:07):
a way of stalling encroaching forces. A mead, also called
honey wine, is made by fermenting honey with water and
often flavoring the mixture with fruits or spices. A two
notable occurrences of mad mead as a biological weapon took
place in the same region we've been talking about. In
nine forty six, ce Olga of Kiev had his allies

(04:29):
sneakily offer mead to his Russian foes, then slaughtered all
five thousand of them once they had collapsed, and in
fourteen eighty nine a Russian army left behind casks of
poisoned mead when they abandoned the camp in the face
of an incoming Potter army then swept back through and
killed some ten thousand of them. The armies of antiquity

(04:52):
may have fallen for these literal honey traps because sugar
wasn't widespread until the seventeen hundred see before the technology
and enslaved labor that brought the price down for sugar.
Around that time, the sweeteners were rare and expensive in
most places, limited to things like maple syrup, dates, and honey.

(05:12):
So mad honey was a delicious but deadly trojan horse
or trojan hive. Today's episode is based on the article
Ridiculous History Ancient armies waged war with hallucinogenic honey on
HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Laurel Dove. Brain Stuff is

(05:33):
production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and
is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
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