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Kaçkar Mountains, Turkey
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In the little wood hut perched excessive on metal-wrapped stilts, the drone is excessive, loud and insistent.
With his beekeeping swimsuit on, however fingers uncovered, Hasan Kutluata squeezes the bellows on his pine-filled bee smoker. Pale wreaths swirl in the air, mirroring the mist that drifts over the slopes of the densely forested Kaçkar mountains outdoors.
The smoke is to calm the bees, masking the pheromone they launch after they sense hazard and which warns different bees to assault.
When Kutluata lifts the lid off the spherical lindenwood hives, the hum rises to a crescendo — however these bees aren’t indignant, it’s simply their honey that’s mad.
We’re right here to harvest deli bal — bal means “honey” and deli means “crazy” or “mad” — and Turkey’s Black Sea area is considered one of only two places in the world to produce it, the different being Nepal’s Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain vary.
“In our untouched forests, the purple rhododendron blooms in spring,” Kutluata tells NCS. “The bees collect nectar from those flowers, and that’s how we get the mad honey.”
The nectar accommodates a naturally occurring toxin known as grayanotoxin. The quantity that makes it into the honey varies per season and what different flowers the bees have been feasting on, however a spoonful can pack enough buzz to ship a gently soporific excessive — whereas a jar would land you in a hospital.
For millennia, deli bal has been used as folks drugs, a spoonful taken each day to decrease blood strain or used as a sexual stimulant. Today, this doubtlessly harmful delicacy sells at a premium value.
Kutluata makes use of a knife to fastidiously extract comb from the hive, the sticky elixir dripping thick and candy as he gathers it in a bucket.
Deli bal is a darkish amber crimson and its scent is sharp. There are telltale sensations that announce the presence of grayanotoxin: A natural bitterness underlies the sweetness of the honey and a burning warmth catches the again of the throat.
Today’s honey has all the indicators. “We shouldn’t eat too much. If we eat more, it might affect us,” says Kutluata. “There’s no hallucination involved. It just causes dizziness, low blood pressure, a slight fever, nausea, and difficulty walking.”
No greater than a teaspoon or tablespoon is really useful. “We have to be careful while consuming this honey,” says Kutluata. “Too much of anything is harmful. And too much honey is harmful as well.”
This is a meals that has felled armies. In the 4th century BCE, the Greek navy chief Xenophon wrote of soldiers touring close to Trabzon on the Black Sea coast who overindulged on the candy deal with: “Not one of them could stand up, but those who had eaten a little were like people exceedingly drunk, while those who had eaten a great deal seemed like crazy, or even, in some cases, dying men. So they lay there in great numbers as though the army had suffered a defeat, and great despondency prevailed.”
“That’s enough for today; the bees are starting to attack,” says Kutluata, “Let’s slowly head down now.”
Once we’re again on stable floor, the ladder goes again up to the hut so no extra climbing may be accomplished. The enemy this mini-fortress is warded in opposition to isn’t Greek armies, however honey-crazed bears.
The metallic round the poles is to stop bears digging their claws in, and the platform’s peak, some 10 ft off the floor, is to cease momma bear throwing her cub up to get the honey she will’t attain.
Kutluata is viscerally conscious of the risks. Some 20 years after an assault, he nonetheless has scars on his hand and leg from when he fought off a bear which had raided his hives and obtained right into a deli bal stupor.
The apparently sleeping bear had roused when Kutluata and his pals approached and the ensuing chase and battle landed Kutluata in intensive look after greater than per week.
“Whether we’re afraid of bears or not, we have to do this work,” he says. “We will continue beekeeping. We encounter bears almost every day. Whenever we go up the mountain, we come across a bear.”
When harmful doses of dali bal aren’t concerned, nevertheless, “the bear doesn’t attack us. The bear runs away from us, and we run away from the bear.”
We hop in the truck and rattle down the winding mountain tracks to Kutluata’s household house close to the village of Yaylacılar, not removed from Arili Köyü — the aptly named “village of the bees.”
His dad and mom, spouse and son be a part of us for lunch; they’re a beekeeping household of three generations. The desk is set underneath the eaves of the historically styled home, with its uninhabited decrease ground stacked with field beehives.
“Our village is very cool. Summers are very cool here. There are no mosquitoes. It’s not like the city, where it’s too hot to stay,” says Kutluata. “Here, it’s a natural life. We have a river; we can go swimming. There’s no noise here.”
The purity of the setting contributes to the high quality of the honey, says his spouse Emine. “What makes us different is the nature, the altitude, and the absence of settlements. That plays a huge role in the production process.”
Deli bal is simply considered one of the honeys the household cultivates. After the purple rhododendron, the white chestnut flower blooms. After that, the white rhododendron is in flower.
In summer time, if the climate isn’t wet, Kutluata’s bees can replenish a hive in about 20 days.
“The longer the honey stays in the hive, the higher its quality becomes. The quality is determined by the promille value,” he explains. Promille refers to the focus of the honey. “The higher the promille value, the higher the quality.”
“Chestnut honey can be found everywhere, but it really makes a difference,” provides Emine. “In terms of the promille value, it can be 600, 700, 800, but elsewhere, it might be 500 in terms of quality.”
Honey is a breakfast staple in Turkish properties and the Kutluatas present us how they combine it with butter and unfold it on bread, for a hearty and high-energy begin to the day.
The meals’s properties as a pure antibiotic have lengthy been documented; it’s considered one of the world’s oldest medicines.
To Emine, honey “represents health. If my throat is sore, I turn to honey. If I’m coughing, I turn to honey. If I’m feeling weak, I turn to honey again.”
And to Kutluata, the bees themselves are restorative for psychological well being. “When I’m feeling down, I go to the bees. When I’m stressed or feeling troubled from work or the outside world, I go to the bees,” he says. “I open the hive, take care of them, and I feel peaceful and happy. And all my stress and troubles disappear.”
Deli bal may be offered legally in Turkey and is authorized in many nations. However, the US Food and Drug Administration doesn’t suggest its consumption.
“Consumers should check labeling of honey to ensure it is not labeled as ‘mad honey’ or marketed for intoxicating qualities,” an FDA spokesperson informed NCS.
“Eating honey with a high amount of this toxin can lead to ‘mad honey’ poisoning, with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, or dizziness. This type of poisoning is rare.”
This story was initially printed in 2024. It was up to date and republished in November 2025. NCS’s Christina Macfarlane, Stefanie Blendis and Işıl Sarıyüce contributed to this story.