I heard one just the other day from my marine engineer, an old cracker from central Florida. Keep in mind, this guy is one of the best story tellers I’ve ever known and his style, exaggerated accent, and self-deprecating manner make the stories so hilarious that their veracity is of no importance to me. I would put this one in the creepy file:
Florida Blue Honey.
A few small bee keepers in along Highway 27 in central Florida had been producing for generations a superior honey from the pollen of surrounding orange groves which they sold out of their roadside stalls. Suddenly a few years ago, they noticed that their honey was coming up blue. It was a very pleasing, clear, ice-blue and even seemed to enhance the flavor. It was assumed that the bees had simply found a new secondary source for pollen, a concentration of one of the many blue flowers that proliferate in the region. Florida Blue sales were brisk and word got around. People were coming from all over to buy this pretty, new, blue honey.
Eventually, the local FDA contingent showed up determined to track the source of pollen. They found that the bees had been frequenting a huge, 2,000-acre government construction site carved out of the hundreds of square miles of central Florida orange groves. The blue color was coming from the perfumed chemicals used in the septic tanks of the hundreds of portable toilets on this site.
Of course this guy swears it’s true, like all of his stories, but I’ve found nothing anywhere to confirm this one. Great story, though.