The spring is a ferric acid, which is said to have healing properties for kidney problems, gout and stomach ulcers. However, a cure should be agreed with your family doctor beforehand.

The Islamic envoy Ibrahim ibn Ahmed at Tartushin, who paid a visit to Emperor Otto I in the Palatinate of Merseburg in 973, passed through the village of Schmechten on his way home to Spain and drank from the honey spring, which he subsequently described as follows during a rest stop in Paderborn: "There is a marvellous spring of water there, called the honey spring. It is located on a mountain near the forest. Its water tastes like honey at first, but then it takes on a bilious flavour from the trees that grow around it.

The mead fountain had its heyday under Prince-Bishop Ferdinand von Fürstenberg in the second half of the 17th century. The prince-bishop drank from the water every day when he stayed at his summer residence in Dringenberg. He and his scholars even sang about the fountain in enthusiastic odes in the style of the time.