stonepicnicking_okapi

Honey has been on my mind because the boys' father prefers it (he eats it on frozen waffles every morning and prefers local honey whenever I'm in a place to buy it, like farmer's markets and produce stand) and the doctor told him he has to cut out sugar to get his A1c down so he was talking about cutting it out. I like it in theory and bees and honey as symbols but I don't eat it.

I don't think I can do better than this collage from last year. I checked my local craft store and these were the bee stickers they had so I'd make the same collage over.

The concept of 'mad honey' caught my attention in a language of flowers book and I read up on it. It's honey and comb made from bees who forage among species of Rhododendron in Turkey. It's been used as a weapon for millennia.

So I wrote a poem and did a triple drabble for

holmes_minor.

Title: Mad Honey
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes ACD - Sussex
Rating: Gen
Length: 300
Summary: In Sussex, a case upsets Watson.

Sherlock Holmes shifted his weight from one foot to another. Then, having made his choice, he divested himself of his beekeeper’s attire and proceeded down the cobbled path toward his companion, who was hacking at a herbaceous border as if it were a mortal enemy.

“It was a disturbing case,” ventured Holmes, ready to beat a hasty retreat if broaching the subject had, after all, proved the wrong decision. In the autumn of his years, Holmes was prepared to admit he did make them.

“You were brilliant, as ever,” grunted Watson. He paused his violent chopping and wiped his brow. “It will be a magnificent tale. Mad honey as a murder weapon?” He huffed with something akin to amusement. “I will write it up. I don’t know why the whole affair has upset me so much. It just seems…”
Holmes waited

“…a waste. At our age, shouldn’t we be letting resentments go? Yes, Hanover had injured him—decades ago! To spend years planning and plotting just seems like a horrible use of one’s time. He confessed he bought that horrible suff when he was traveling in Turkey over twenty years ago with the idea of murdering Hanover one day. One day!” Watson shook his head ruefully. “And I would think you would be offended on behalf of the bees. Being used like that! Poor creatures.”

Holmes smiled. “It isn’t their fault. What the bees which get nectar and pollen from species of the Rhododendron family along the Black Sea produce is highly poisonous to humans and has been used as instruments of war for thousands of years.”

“I suppose an old dagger can kill as sharply as a new one,” said Watson.

“But resentment, when fed and allowed to ferment, well, it can be just as poisonous as mad honey.”

mad honey sonnet by okapi

they do as they have done, nectar-seeking
among the golden blossoms, gathering,
returning to the hive, honey-piquing
with all due diligence and swaggering

by the Black Sea, artisans of mad fruit,
gold comb and syrup have laid armies low,
ambrosias to madden along the route
of soon-ambushed soldiers, a sticky woe

weapon of ancient Greeks, who could conceive,
toil’s end of busy forger and scout,
ages later, who could fail to believe
old war dog’s wagging tales and who could doubt

that nemesis could choose a treacle helpmeet
and a revenge so old could be so sweet

This is a challenge to post about 50 things I'm fannish about in 2024. I did the challenge in 2023 so to make it more interesting, in 2024, it's Everything is Murder edition. More info & to sign up here:https://alexcat.dreamwidth.org/1357645.html

The List (to date)

Fannish 50: 2024: #1: Jeeves & Wooster
Fannish 50: 2024: #2: Libraries
Fannish 50: 2024: #3: Facial Sheet Masks
Fannish 50: 2024: #4: Venom
Fannish 50: 2024: #5: jhope of BTS
Fannish 50: 2024: #6: the art of Edward Gorey
Fannish 50: 2024: #7: The works of Edgar Allan Poe
Fannish 50: 2024: #8: SUGA of BTS
Fannish 50: 2024: #9: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Fannish 50: 2024: #10: Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Fannish 50: 2024: #11: Honkaku & shin honkaku detective fiction
Fannish 50: 2024: #12: Audiobooks
Fannish 50: 2024: #13: Holiday blend coffee
Fannish 50: 2024: #14: Jazz
Fannish 50: 2024: #15: Jigsaw puzzles
Fannish 50: 2024: #16: Sherlock Holmes
Fannish 50: 2024: #17: Poetry
Fannish 50: 2024: #18: Chocolate
Fannish 50: 2024: #19: Detective Matthew Venn series - Ann Cleeves
Fannish 50: 2024: #20: Tarot
Fannish 50: 2024: #21: Poirot - Agatha Christie
Fannish 50: 2024: #22: The ocean
Fannish 50: 2024: #23: Hardboiled detectives/noir
Fannish 50: 2024: #24: Tea
Fannish 50: 2024: #25: Bees & honey