ZOOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 381 



CONCLUSIONS. 



These analyses show conclusively that our chemists can easily distin- 

 guish honey adulterated with glucose, the only adulterant that is likely to 

 be used, from all honey except that produced from honey dew. All three 

 chemist at once detected the two samples which were adulterated, the one 

 with one fourth, the other with one-third of the common commercial 

 glucose of the shops. These samples gave a right-handed rotation, and a 

 precipitate of dextrine. The samples were numbers 4 and 6. 



It is also shown that previous to this time our best chemists could not 

 distinguish between adulterated honey and some kinds of honey dew 

 honey. Thus Prof. Wiley and Dr. Kedzie grouped No. 23 with Nos. 4 and 

 6 as adulterated, and Prof. Scovell did the same with No. 9 in his list. It 

 is to be hoped that the careful analyses of Prof. H. W. Wiley have given 

 us a means of separating the rank honey dew honey from the adulterated 

 article. Although this is not a matter of great practical importance, for 

 such honey will never be placed on the markets, in competition with other 

 honey, yet it is very desirable that the chemist shall be able to distinguish 

 all adulteration. If a large percentage of ash, and a relatively small 

 proportion of invert sugar, together with a right-handed or slight left- 

 hand rotation is a sure indication of honey dew honey, then surely that fact 

 alone is worth many times the expense and trouble which these investiga- 

 tions have cost. These analyses also clearly show that the term pine 

 tree honey is a misnomer, and that the term honey dew honey should be 

 used in its stead, for honey produced from secretions of aphides, as the 

 honey dew in question was from other aphides than those attacking the 

 pine. 



Another interesting fact appears in the analyses of Nos. 12, 45, 27 and 

 65. All of these were from honey dew. All were pleasant to the taste, 

 and all but one, at most, would pass as genuine honey. They all gave a 

 right-handed rotation, a large amount of invert sugar, and a small amount 

 of ash. They would all be pronounced genuine honey by the chemists 

 and by the consumer. Will not Prof. Wiley then have to modify his 

 definition of honey? Is it necessarily transformed nectar from flowers? 

 Is it not more in harmony with truth to call it transformed nectar, and 

 confess that there may be grades of honey which we all know to be true. 

 Because the cow has eaten leeks, shall we say that the product of the 

 churn is not butter? Let us tell the truth, and shame the timid soul, by 

 taking what I believe is the only defensible ground, that any liquid pro- 

 duct of bees is honey; that some honey of excellent quality was not pro- 

 duced from the nectar of flowers, and that the quality will vary with the 

 source of the nectar. Nectar must pass into the honey stomach of the 

 worker bees, and then be returned to the honey cells to produce honey and 

 this is honey whatever the source of the nectar. Any other definition 

 clearly makes it impossible to guarantee any honey as genuine. These 

 analyses make this clear, as Nos. 12, 27 and 45 were entirely unsuspected 

 by the chemists, and yet each had its chief source in honey dew. 



This is further emphasized in what Prof. Wiley says on page 10 regard- 

 ing No. 41. This was basswood honey from Wisconsin, of most excellent 

 quality, yet he pronounces it abnormal. Probably it was slightly mixed 

 with other honey. There are points in which chemists who are not 

 physiologists or apiarists are likely to err. They do not take into account 

 the completeness of digestion. Thus numbers 2 and 29 were both pure sugar 



