The Science Behind The Rare Hallucinogenic Honey From Nepal

Posted by Almeda Bohannan on Friday, May 3, 2024

Mad honey is rare and hard to come by. According to BigThink, it doesn't require a certain kind of bee to produce mad honey — though the intoxicating honey is made by the biggest honey bee in the world — Apis dorsata laboriosa, or simply, the Giant honey bee. The honey's properties come from a particular kind of plant. BigThink writes that the flowering plant, rhododendrons, contains neurotoxins that are known as grayanotoxins. When bees feed on the flowers, the bees themselves ingest the grayanotoxins which then make their way into the honey. 

BigThink adds that in areas where there are rhododendrons, there are likely to be few other types of plants in the same vicinity. As a result, the bees in that region are more likely to feed on only the plants that have grayanotoxins and the result is a lot of mad honey. The rhododendrons grow best in higher altitudes so mad honey is a lot harder to come by than other forms of honey. People trying to harvest mad honey usually have to climb large mountains in order to get to it, according to BigThink.

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