Bees wine

[5][6] The drink was made by fermentation of brown sugar or treacle, primarily by the yeast Saccharomyces pyriformis in combination with the bacteria Lentilactobacillus hilgardii.

[3] A 1921 study showed that grains recently available gave a result containing about 3% alcohol, but noted that this was a "poor specimen" and that cultures twenty years previously had been reported by various authors as producing 9–11.3%.

[3] In the 1920s "bees wine" cultures were circulated commercially by mail order and a variety of vague health benefits were claimed for the drink.

[3] The United States Department of Agriculture eventually took steps to advise the public that the cultures being advertised had little intrinsic value, and that a fermentation based on wild yeasts might contain "harmful as well as desirable organisms".

[5] The National Collection of Yeast Cultures holds an old sample of "bees wine", noting "the bacteria are Lactobacilli and an unknown Gram positive rod that forms a gelatinous sheath that coils and traps the other cells in it ...