“In the nice bee what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?”
says: “It is however much to be questioned whether this noxious honey proves so to the bees themselves.” Sir J. E. Smith asserts that “the nectar of plants is not poisonous to bees.” Syllabus to Botan. Lect. And Dr. Barton, though disposed to adopt the contrary opinion, gives instances to the same effect. Thus a party of young men, induced by the prospect of gain, having removed their hives from Pennsylvania to the Jerseys, whose vast savannahs were finely painted with the flowers of the Kalmia angustifolia, could not use or dispose of their honey, on account of its intoxicating quality; yet, “the bees increased prodigiously,” an increase only to be explained by their being well and harmlessly fed.
This disorder is marked, we are told, by a dizzy manner of flying, and by irregular motions, such as starting, falling down, &c. when the bees are pursuing their usual occupations. To these symptoms succeed lassitude and death. No remedy has hitherto been discovered for this malady.
Huber says that vertigo attacks ants, and causes them to lose the power of moving in a straight line, and occasions the performance of rapid gyrations always in the same direction: he observed one insect make about 1000 turns in an hour, describing a circle of about an inch in diameter; this continued for seven days: he does not say whether he ever knew any instance of a recovery.
In Dr. Barton’s ingenious paper, to which I have already referred in the chapter on Pasturage, the plants enumerated as yielding poisonous honey are Kalmia angustifolia, latifolia, and hirsuta; Rhododendron maximum, Azalea nudiflora, and Andromeda mariana. The honey of these is stated to have proved injurious both to dogs and the human species. The symptoms it usually produces are dimness of sight or vertigo, delirium, ebriety, pain in the stomach and bowels, convulsions, profuse perspiration, foaming at the mouth, vomiting and purging; in some instances, temporary palsy of the limbs, but very seldom death. The best mode of treatment is not yet ascertained; though the similarity of the symptoms, the Doctor says, would induce us to pursue the same plan as in counteracting other narcotic poisons. In those cases, early vomiting, whether spontaneous or induced by art, removes the disease at once; and cold bathing, so useful in other spasmodic or convulsive affections, is employed with considerable advantage by both Natives and Europeans. This should seem to be one of those cases in which the stomach-pump would be peculiarly beneficial, from the promptness and certainty of its action.
To the credit of the genus of plants last named, it should be mentioned that one species (Andromeda nitida or lucida of Bartram) affords abundance of excellent honey; hence the name of honey-flower is given to it, by the country people in Georgia and Carolina, not however merely from the circumstance just mentioned, but from the regular position of the flowers on the peduncle, which open like the cells of a honey-comb, and from the odour of these flowers, which greatly resembles that of honey."—Barton.
“As most of the plants enumerated in the above list are now introduced into our gardens, and the Datura (common Thorn Apple) has long become perfectly naturalized, 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, as instanced above in the Jerseys.” Evans, B. ii. p. 95.
Tumefaction of the Antennæ.
The antennæ, in this disorder, become swelled at their extremities, which resemble the bud of a flower ready to open, and they assume a yellow colour, of which the forepart of the head shortly partakes; the bees becoming gradually languid and dying, if they have not timely assistance.—This malady occurs about the month of May.