HONEY is secreted by the nectariferous glands of flowers, from whence it is collected by the working or neuter bees, which extract it by means of the proboscis, and pass it into the dilatation of the esophagus, known as the crop or honey-bag. When the animal has arrived at the hive, it the honey. probably altered by admixture with the secretion of the crop, into the cells of the comb. It is used by the bees as food, but it is its general properties and uses to man that here require notice.
The composition of honey varies somewhat according to the food of the bees, their age, the season, etc. Hybla, a mountain in Sicily, and Ilymettus, a mountain in Attica, were in ancient times celebrated for their honey; doubtless in consequence of the wild thyme and other fragrant herbs growing on them. The honey of Narbonne and Chamouni is now held in high estimation for similar reasons; and in this country honey obtained by bees having access to heather has, as is well known, a peculiarly agreeable taste. The substances which have been recognized in honey are sugar of two kinds—one crystallizable and analogous to glucose (q.v.), and the other uncrystallizable, mannite (according to Guibourt); gummy, waxy, coloring and odorous matters; and pollen. The proportion of crystallizable sugar increases with the age of the honey, so as to give it in time a granular character. The best and newest honey is a clear fluid contained in a white comb, while older honey is of a yellowish and even reddish tint.
From the remotest times, honey has been employed as en article of food; and to the ancients, who were unacquainted with sugar, it was of more importance than it now is. " A land flowing with milk and honey" Offered the highest conceivable advantages to the eastern mind. Taken in mrtkrate quantity, honey is nutritive and laxative, but dyspeptic persons often find that it aggravates their symptoms. Its therapeutic action is probably not very great, but it is employed with advantage to Ilavor and give a demulcent character to various drinks or mixtures prescribed for allaying cough: and in the form of aryncel, which is usually prepared by mixing honey, acetic acid, and water, it is frequently added to gargles, or mixed with barley-water, so as to Rum en agreeable cooling drink in febrile and inflammatory affections, or given as an expec torant in coughs and colds.
It should be mentioned that honey occasionally possesses very deleterious properties. Xenophon, in his history of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand (Analasi4, book iv.), describes the honey of Trebizond as having produced the effect of temporary madness, or rather drunkenness, on the whole army who ate of it. Mr. Abbot, writing from
Trebizond in 1833 to the secretary of the zoological society, observes that he lies him self witnessed that the effects of this honey are still precisely the same as those which Xenophon describes, and lie adopts the views propounded by Tournefort in 1704, that the poisonous properties are consequent on the bees extracting the honey from the Azalea Pontiea. Many other instances of poisonous honey are on record.
Honey, although not of so much importance commercially as it was before sugar became so large an importation, is nevertheless brought to this country from abroad in considerable quantities, which, in addition to the home produce mentioned in the article BEE, shows that it is still largely in demand. Nearly fifty tons are annually imported from various parts of the world: North America, the West Indies, Portugal, France, and Greece are the countries from which we receive most. The French is very fine, and is chiefly consumed for domestic and medicinal purposes; the Greek Is the finest. and is only used as a table delicacy; most of the other kinds are inferior, and excepting some portion which isused by the tobacco manufacturers, to give a spurious sweetness to tobacco, it is difficult to account for the consumption of so large a quantity. Honey is often very much adulterated. One of the most common materials used for that purpose is flair; samples of French honey have also been found largely adulterated with gelatine; the latter caunot so easily be detected, as there is always present naturally a portion of gelatine in honey. The quality of eveu the best depends upon its careful refinement or clarifying. If honey be slightly heated, the chief imptolties rise to the surface, and can easily be removed by skimming; this is usually done, except in the ease of virgin honey, which is generally sufficiently pure for most purposes.
liONY ANT, a name given to several species of the ant family, inhabiting:Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona. Like other ants they live in colonies, and most of them have considerable resemblance to our common brown ant. Some of them secrete honey in their cavities, and become very touch sw(illen, so that they cannot travel. They are then placed in tows in galleries and fed and waited on by the other ants. They become at last apparently spherical distended sacs, the head and thorax having the appearance of a small stein. When food becomes scarce these " stall-fed " ants are eaten by the less-pampered members of the community.