ARTIFICIAL HONEY AND MANUFACTURED SCIENCE. 71 



the American Cyclopaedia and the American supplement to the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica. In justice to the latter, however, it 

 mnst be said that the British work, whose publishers repudiate 

 the American supplement, contains nothing of this. 



Here is what the American Cyclopaedia says on the subject: 

 " Glucose is very extensively fed to bees, which eat it with great 

 avidity, and store it away unchanged as honey. It is also put up 

 directly in trade as honey — with which bees have had nothing to 

 do — being put by means of appropriate machinery into artificial 

 combs made of paraffin " (page 834, vol. viii, edition of 1883). 



The American supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica 

 has this information on the subject : " Honey is manufactured on 

 the same plan, only here the bees are employed to assist in the 

 fraud. They are furnished with a supply of starch-sugar, which 

 they store in their combs, when these combs are also fraudulent, 

 being made from paraffin and furnished to the bees, who fill them 

 with glucose and cap them with genuine wax. It is difficult 

 to see how the art of adulteration could be carried further" 

 (page 41, vol. i, Hubbard Brothers, Philadelphia and New York, 

 1885). 



Argument and refutation failing to kill the falsehood, the ed- 

 itor of Gleanings in Bee-Culture — a responsible man financially 

 — offered a reward of one thousand dollars to any one (including 

 Prof. Wiley) who would produce some of the so-called " manu- 

 factured " honey, or designate the place where it was made or 

 could be found. This offer is still open and good. The writer of 

 this article also offered through the press a reward of one hun- 

 dred colonies of bees (equal to about one thousand dollars) to any 

 one who would produce some of this "artificial honey." This 

 offer also is still open and good. None, however, has ever been 

 produced. No one has yet come forward to claim the cash or the 

 bees. 



Prof. Wiley had supplemented the assertion above quoted with 

 the following additional information, probably to encourage the 

 manufacturers : " This honey " (that is, the manufactured article) 

 " for whiteness and beauty rivals the celebrated real white-clover 

 honey of Vermont, but can be sold at an immense profit* at one 

 half the price." Now, had that business of honey manufacture 

 been as practicable as profitable, the temptation to embark in it 

 would have been almost too much for human nature to resist. 

 But it seems nobody went in, while nearly everybody believed 

 that other bodies were in. 



However, Nature's dearth is likely to produce conviction 

 where facts, arguments, and rewards failed to do so. The seasons 

 of 1887 and 1888, especially the latter, were unpropitious for the 

 " busy little bee," and yielded but little honey. The crop was a 



