262 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



"What is Honeyl— Something in Defense of 

 Sugar Honey. 



PBOr. A. J. COOK. 



TT IS NOT ALWAYS 

 1 that our diction- 

 aries are to be relied 

 upon to tell VLB the 

 truth. This is illus- 

 trated by our latest 

 and so far as I know 

 our best: The Cen- 

 tury. In it honey is 

 defined as " the sweet 

 substance of flowers, 

 gathered by the bees." 

 It takes but very lit- 

 tle investigation to actually prove that this 

 is an error. It seems to me that the best def- 

 inition we can possibly give is this: Honey 

 is digested nectar. Every one understands 

 that honey is the liquid product of bees 

 which they store in the cells of their comb. 

 This substance has been known from time 

 immemorial as honey. The merest child 

 and the unlettered rustic as well as the 

 scholar agree to this last statement. It is a 

 truism too evident for contradiction, too 

 generally recognized to require any argu- 

 ment. 



The other definition: that honey is di- 

 gested nectar is just as true though not as 

 evident to the unlearned. The definition 

 offends the tastes and sensitive notions of 

 many good people and especially bee keepers 

 who dread to see any, even an imaginary 

 stigma cast upon their pets or the product 

 of the apiary. Let me urge that any such 

 statement, if truth, need disquiet no one. 

 We all should desire the truth. Should will- 

 ingly dig for it, scatter it when found, and 

 defend it at all hazzards, especially so if we 

 have to do with nature's secrets, for these 

 are God's own truths. But why should any 

 one be offended at this definition? We all 

 know that honey is carried in the honey 

 stomach and emptied from it into the cells 

 of the comb. I think it must come from a 

 wrong notion of digestion. Digestion is 

 simply changing our food so that it can be 

 absorbed. It may be simply liquif action; 

 though many substances like blood, albumen, 

 the albuminous material of milk and cane 

 sugar may be in solution or in a liquid state 

 and yet must be changed — digested — before 

 absorption can take place. These sub- 

 stances can not pass rapidly, possibly not at 



all, from the stomach through to the blood, 

 except that they are digested. Digestion 

 makes them no less clean, no less wholesome, 

 no less nutritious. It simply makes them 

 available, practically useful. Held in the 

 stomach, and they would be heavy indeed. 

 Changed by the digestive ferments and they 

 pass rapidly and easily into the blood, and 

 hasten on to nourish the tissues. If we eat 

 cane sugar, we have to digest it. If we 

 eat honey it has already been digested. 

 Therefore it may be true, as some physicians 

 have argued, that honey is a safer food for 

 those w th weak and delicate stomachs than 

 is our common cane sugar. We know that 

 certain diseases like diabetes and Bright's 

 disease are now more common than of old, 

 and we also know that no revolution in food 

 regimen has been so marked and startling 

 as that from honey to cane sugar. We eat 

 the latter in extenso and have to do what the 

 bees did for our away back ancestors who 

 ate few sweets other than honey. Thus no 

 one need or should object to the assertion 

 that honey is digested nectar. First be- 

 cause it is truth, and secondly because this 

 very digestion is in every way wholesome 

 and desirable. 



The nectar from which honey comes is 

 very various in its origin and doubtless quite 

 varied in its nature. Bees get the nectar 

 from flowers, from sap, from fungi, from 

 fruit and from various insects. While bees 

 get the most of their nectar from flowers 

 they often get not a little from extra floral 

 glands, as in case of the cotton, the cow and 

 patridge peas. Maple and other sap, furnish 

 not a little nectar, and so are far more cul- 

 pable than our good friend Hasty for they 

 gave the bees pure cane sugar years ago, 

 while Hasty only suggested it in this last 

 year of our Lord 1891. The sap from stubble 

 often yields very abundant nectar as does 

 such fungi as ergot, and the bees have no 

 scruples against it, for they gather, digest, 

 and ftore it and it is honey. The secretions 

 from insects are treated in the same way. 

 In some cases the resultant honey is dark, 

 rank and unfit for table use, but in other 

 cases it is delicious and could not be told by 

 the chemist,or even by the connoisseur from 

 even the best of honey from nectar of our 

 best reputed blossoms. Now if only that 

 is honey which is derived from the nectar of 

 flowers, what shall we call all the other? 

 Indeed the most of our honey is composite 

 in make up and in origin. Very much of 



