Creating a buzz: Turkish beekeepers risk life and limb to make mad honey

Pompey the Great was admired and feared throughout the ancient world, but an early misadventure with mad honey near the modern-day Black Sea city of Trabzon almost derailed his entire career.

The Roman general was pursuing the army of Mithridates VI in 97BC when in a stroke of military genius the Greco-Persian king ordered his troops to place bowls of the locally produced honey in the path of the advancing Romans. Three detachments of soldiers fell upon it, becoming delirious or fainting as they succumbed to its psychedelic effects. Mithridates’ troops returned to find Pompey’s men incapacitated and proceeded to slaughter the lot of them.