# Bad plants?



## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Welcome to Beesource!


This Wikipedia page lists some plants that are toxic to honeybees, and also lists some plants that have nectar that can result in honey damaging to humans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bees_and_toxic_chemicals

However, your bees will likely be foraging on _thousands _of acres in the vicinity of their hive (up to 1.5 to 2 mile radius), so there is little that you can really control in terms of plants they might visit. Hopefully you don't live next door to to a vast _Rhododendron ponticum_ plantation, though.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

http://www.countryfarm-lifestyles.com/honey-plants.html#.VJyWkcBAA

Here is a seed site that I save with some bad bee plants at the end.


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## Mavis P (Oct 2, 2014)

Is it worth removing them? or is the amount of honey from 3 plants mixed in with everything else gonna be okay?

New Bee keeper, curious

Thank you in advance


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

> Can you tell me more about why Rhododendron ponticum is bad. 

From the link in my earlier post ...



> Honey produced with pollen from the flowers of this plant can be quite poisonous, causing severe hypotension and bradycardia in humans if consumed in sufficient quantities, due to toxic diterpenes (grayanotoxins).
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhododendron_ponticum


In my opinion, 3 plants is not large enough of a 'plantation' to get concerned about, given all the other plants that your bees will be visiting. However, I have absolutely _ZERO_ professional knowledge in that regard. 

[hr] [/hr] 

I'd like to point out that there can be a variety of 'active' links in Beesource posts. As an example, I used 2 different styles in my post #3 above. If you see an underlined phrase where the text is a different color than the main body text, chances are that underlined text is an 'active link', even though you don't see the familiar "http" link format. With many browsers you can do a 'mouseover' of the underlined text to see what the actual link is before you click on it. With the _Chrome _browser that I primarily use, the full text of the link appears in the lower left corner of my browser window when doing a mouseover.

Similarly, photos displayed at Beesource _can _also be active links. Both Flickr and Photobucket offer code that makes linked photos active links simply by clicking on the photo. I usually disable that in my linked photos, but I see that some other photos displayed here that are active.

.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Rhododendron Honey was going for about $50 for a small jar (probably about 3 or 4 ounces) in Istanbul when I was there... as treatment for ED...

Here is some for sale in Italy.
http://www.formaggiokitchen.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=1625


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## RFloyd (Nov 20, 2014)

What about tobacco? The forage area in a 2 mile range of my property id almost exclusively farmland, and a large percentage of that is regularly planted in tobacco, in addition to corn and soybeans. 

I've heard tobacco is a bad idea for bees, and Emile Warre warned against it in his book, keeping hives near it, that is.

And further experience from you guys?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I have no experience with bees foraging tobacco. But here are some articles:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...a=X&ei=0hEcVaiWMYnjoATv2YLIBg&ved=0CBwQgQMwAA


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## AndrewoftheEast (Mar 29, 2015)

I read coloradobeekeepers.org saying no plants in genus nicotiana (includes all tobacco) were seen being foraged by bees at all. Maybe the the long skinny flowers make it impossible. Don't know!


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## AndrewoftheEast (Mar 29, 2015)

Thanks! You inspired me to dig a bit, found YouTube doc Hallucinogen Honey Hunters. Himalayan Bees doing the wave: amazing. A Nepalese guy 'overdosing' and having a seizure on this honey, pretty amazing.


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