[2108] This plan is still adopted on the river Po, the ancient Padus, as also at Beauce, in the south of France, where the hives are carried from place to place upon carts. In the north of England it is the practice to carry the hives to the moors in autumn.
[2109] This has been doubted by Spielmann, but it is nevertheless the truth; the nature of the sugar secreted by the glands of the nectary, being analogous to that of the plant which furnishes it. The honey gathered from aconite in Switzerland has been known to produce vertigo and even delirium. Dr. Barton also gives a similar account of the effects of the poisonous honey collected from the Kalmia latifolia in Pennsylvania; and Geoffroi Saint Hilaire says that, having eaten in Brazil some honey prepared by a wasp called “lecheguana,” his life was put in very considerable danger thereby. Xenophon also speaks of the effects of the intoxicating or maddening honey upon some of the Ten Thousand in their retreat.
[2110] The rhododendrons and rose laurels, Fée says, which are so numerous in these parts, render the fact here stated extremely probable.
[2111] “Goats’ death.” Fée says that this is the Rhododendron Ponticum of Linnæus. Desfontaines identifies it with the Azalea Pontica of modern botany.
[2112] In reality, there are no visible signs by which to detect that the honey is poisonous.
[2113] B. xxix. c. 31.
[2114] See B. xii. c. 25.
[2115] Μαινόμενον, “maddening.”
[2116] The ægolethron of the preceding Chapter, Fée thinks. If so, the word rhododendron, he says, would apply to two plants, the Nerion oleander or rose laurel (see B. xvi. c. 33), and the Rhododendron Ponticum.
[2117] Fée refuses to credit this: but still such a thing might accidentally happen.