Still however the balm of Pontus, the thyme of Hymettus, and the rosemary of Narbonne, are generally supposed, from their aromatic flowers, to give its peculiar excellence to the celebrated honey of those places.
It should seem therefore that rosemary might prove of importance in the neighbourhood of an apiary, by improving the quality and increasing the quantity of honey in certain seasons, viz. if the weather were very hot and dry, when it blossomed; for it never affords much honey in this country, excepting in such a season. It blossoms the earliest of aromatic herbs, and should of course be planted in a southern aspect.
Having said thus much upon the power which flowers possess of imparting a peculiar flavour to the honey which is extracted from them, I will now advert to what has been stated relative to their impregnating it with deleterious qualities. During the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand, as recorded by Xenophon in his Memorabilia, the soldiers sucked some honey-combs in a place near Trebizonde, where was a great number of bee-hives, and in consequence became intoxicated, and were attacked with vomiting and purging. He states that they did not recover their senses for twenty-four hours, nor their strength for three or four days. Tournefort, when travelling in Asia, bearing in mind this account of Xenophon, was very diligent in his endeavours to ascertain its truth, and had good reason to be satisfied respecting it. He concluded that the honey had been extracted from a shrub growing in the neighbourhood of Trebizonde, which is well known to produce the before-mentioned effects, and even to disturb the head by its odour. From his description and that of others, the plant from which this honey was extracted, appears to be the Rhododendron ponticum or Azalea pontica of Linnæus, both nearly allied to each other, and growing abundantly in that part of the country. The smell resembles honey-suckle, but is much stronger. Father Lamberti confirms Xenophon’s account, by stating similar effects to have been produced by the honey of Colchis or Mingrelia, where this shrub is also common.
Dr. Darwin, in his “Temple of Nature,” states that some plants afford a honey which is intoxicating and poisonous to man, and that what is afforded by others is so injurious to the bees themselves, that sometimes they will not collect it. And Dr. Barton, in the American Philosophical Transactions, has stated that, in the autumn and winter of 1790, the honey collected near Philadelphia proved fatal to many, in consequence of which, a minute inquiry was instituted under the direction of the American Government, when it was ascertained satisfactorily, that the fatal honey had been chiefly extracted from the flowers of the Kalmia latifolia. Still more recently, two persons at New York are said to have lost their lives by eating wild honey, which was supposed to have been gathered from the flowers of the dwarf laurel, a thriving shrub in the American woods. I shall resume this subject in [Chap. 24], on Bee-maladies.
It appears also that at the time of the inquiry set on foot by the American Government, similar fatal consequences were produced among those who had eaten the common American pheasant, which, on examination, was found to arise from the pheasants having fed upon the leaves of the same plant Kalmia latifolia. This led to a public proclamation prohibiting the use of the pheasant for food during that season.
As most of the plants here enumerated are now introduced into our gardens, they might be supposed to injure the British honey. Most probably, however, their proportion to the whole of the flowers in bloom is too small to produce any such inconvenience; whereas on their native continent they exclusively cover whole tracts of country.
I cannot close this chapter on Bee-Pasturage, without adverting to what Linnæus has said of the Fritillaria imperialis or crown imperial, and of the Melianthus or honey-flower. Of the former, he observes that “no plant, melianthus alone excepted, abounds so much with honey, yet the bees do not collect it.” Of the latter he remarks “that if it be shaken, whilst in flower, it distils a shower of nectar.” This observation applies more particularly to the Melianthus major. And with respect to the Fritillaria, Dr. Evans says, “that the bees do sometimes visit it; and he thinks that they would do so oftener, but for the disagreeable fox-like smell that emanates from it.”
The liquidambar and liriodendrum, or tulip-tree, both which are so ornamental, the former to our shrubberies and the latter to larger plantations, have been much extolled, as affording food for bees. The liquidambar bears bright saffron-coloured flowers, and highly perfumed and glossy leaves, and its whole rind exudes a fragrant gum. The liriodendrum is crowned with large bell-shaped blossoms, of every rainbow hue, which give it a very splendid appearance.