# Bees in opium poppies



## AsaBSpade (Jun 23, 2009)

I've been looking around at different flowers as they bloom this season to see how much attention our honey bees are giving each species. One thing I've noticed is that our opium poppies are always loaded with bees. They seem to be addicted! I'll sometimes find six or seven bees on one flower. They are apparently collecting copious amounts of pollen, as their baskets are usually packed with the (earwax colored) stuff.

I wonder though; are they also making propolis from the resins? Does this lead to a calm hive? If I used propolis traps would it have any "special" properties?


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

I think you mean "pollen traps". 

As for the pollen having any "special properties" I have NO idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## UUmom2many (Apr 21, 2009)

do you have to be careful with the honey? like not eating too much? I guess it's more the seeds than the poppies though....i have no idea.


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## beeman97 (Jul 13, 2003)

there is no need to worry about the honey, or the other stuff like the pollen the bee's take off the flowers of these plants, the trouble begins in the pod that is left after the flowering has finished, 1 is clearly visible in your picture right in the foreground of that picture , those pods are slit & the opium oozes out of those pods & is collected by the drug dealers.
not to worry I'm not 1 of those people, i just have a tendency to look things up online before commenting on them. & 1 knows someone can find ANYTHING they want on the net.


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

Well now that IS a bummer, Beeman.


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## dezeeuwgoats (Jan 12, 2006)

You know, i found a referrence in an herbal remedy book to gathering the seeds of wild poppy - the prickly ones with the white, crepe paper looking blossoms, and crushing the seeds into a paste, adding petroleum jelly or some such matrix, and using for a topical anesthetic for cuts and rashes and such.....I wonder if you could do that with the above flowers?

Okay - sorry, I kind of went down my own path with that one! lol


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

If you eat a poppyseed roll you WILL test positive for drugs. Then again, that is from the seed pod and not from the flower.

I just do not know about the honey or pollen!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## cathleenc (Aug 16, 2007)

papaver somniferum. Bread poppies, lettuce poppies, opium poppies. 

when I told my mom she had such a lovely crop of opium poppies one year she ran to the phone to call the sheriff, terrified that she would be arrested. The sheriff told her to calm down and enjoy some lovely flowers and as long as she resisted gashing the seed pods and gathering resin the law was not interested.

The resin is not opium yet - opium is the first refinement, heroin a further refinement.

Dissolving the gathered resin in brandy creates laundenum - one of the original 'mothers helpers.' Supposed to be good for bad coughs, relieving tension,etc. Unfortunately it is also narcotic and addictive (or so I've read).

I'm keeping my bread poppy interaction to the 'beautiful flower' level.


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