276 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



Since the foregoing was put in type, Glean- 

 ings for Sept. loth has come to hand, and in 

 it I find an article from Prof. Cook covering 

 the same grounds as the extract from the 

 Speculum, but given in more familiar lan- 

 guage. It brings out the "sidelights" and 

 gives the interesting little incidents that all 

 wish to know, hence I take pleasure in copy- 

 ing it: 



Glucosed Honey Easily Detected, tout " Sugar 



Honey" is Classed with Clover 



and Basswood. 



"I have preliminary reports from each of 

 the three able chemists who have kmdly 

 consented to aid us in the important work of 

 detecting adulteration, and arriving at some 

 standard which shall enable us to determme 

 when honey is pure. I can as yet give only 

 a preliminary report; but I can give enough 

 to show that the work is important; and as I 

 am being pressed for a report I send the 

 following: , ^ . i ^ 



I sent over fifty samples to be analyzed. 

 I sent samples of honey from various sources, 

 some gathered very rapidly, some slowly, 

 some gathered from honey-dew, some made 

 by mixing honey with one-third or one- 

 fourth glucose: some which the bees stored 

 from pure cane syrup very rapidly— twenty- 

 three pounds in one night— and extracted 

 the next morning, and the same extracted 

 after it was capped over. These were all 

 sent by number, so that I alone knew just 

 the source of each. , ^, . , , . 



Each chemist detected the honey that was 

 adulterated with glucose, and placed with 

 this a sample of the plant-louse honey. 

 Thus as glucose will be the common adul- 

 terant we may feel that this is practically 

 satisfactory. If from fifty samples taken 

 from very varied sources, only one (and 

 that honey-dew, that never could be sold as 

 honey) was found which could not be dis- 

 tinguished from glucose, we see the chemists 

 can detect this most common adulterant, 

 and enable us to prevent the worst form of 

 adulteration. It is interesting to note that 

 Prof. Wiley— see Bulletin No. 13, p. 798— 

 speaks of pine-tree honey (this is undoubt- 

 edly honey-dew) which was like honey adul- 

 terated with glucose. The honey-dew which 

 I sent was not from pine-tree aphis, how- 

 ever. I also sent two other samples of 

 honey-dew— one from oak-galls, and the 

 other from larch aphis, which were pleasant 

 to the taste, and pronounced by the chemists 

 as genuine honey. 



The honey which was simply cane sugar 

 rapidly stored— and, of course, as we know, 

 partially digested by the bees— was pro- 

 nounced adulterated with cane sugar. But 

 with these were included samples of the 

 finest honey I ever saw— one from basswood, 

 one from white clover, very tine, and one 

 from horsemint, all of which I secured 

 because they were gathered very rapidly. 

 Thus we see the chemists can not surely 

 detect adulteration with cane sugar, if the 

 bees are required to digest or invert the 



sucrose. If the chemist puts the best quality 

 of white clover and linden honey with honey 

 stored from pure cane syrup, it stands to 

 reason that we could feed our bees syrup 

 made of, say, one-third honey and two-thirds 

 cane syrup, and the chemists could not de- 

 tect it: nor could the consumer. I had each 

 member of my class of forty in entomology 

 taste of the honey from the cane syrup. 

 All pronounced it fine, and not one sus- 

 pected, even when asked, that it was any 

 thing but genuine honey procured from the 

 ordinary source, and normal in every way. 



Thus we have proof of what I have long 

 believed, that our best honey, if gathered 

 rapidly, can not be told from honey stored 

 from pure cane-sugar syrup. 



Three samples, one white clover, one gol- 

 den-rod, and one white sage, all fine and 

 rapidly stored, are regarded as suspicious, 

 as they deport themselves as do honeys with 

 an abnormal amount of invert sugar. Three 

 other samples, one smartweed, one black 

 mangrove, and one horsemint, all peculiar 

 in that they were very rapidly gathered, act 

 as pure invert sugar — that secured by artifi- 

 cially reducing cane sugar. Thus six sam- 

 ples, all certainly genuine, and very excel- 

 lent, would be pronounced as suspicious, 

 though possibly not condemned as impure. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



1. We see, then, that the chemist can de- 

 tect honey adulterated with commercial 

 glucose from all genuine honey, except some 

 from honey-dew, which is so rank that it 

 would never eo on to the market. 



2. The chemist cannot tell honey— even 

 the very best — froni that secured by feeding 

 a syrup made of pure cane sugar. 



3. Honey that is very rapidly gathered de- 

 ports itself just as does that secured by feed- 

 ing pure cane syrup; and so, if it be desirable 

 to detect such adulteration, the chemist 

 must revise his methods, as he is not as yet 

 able to do so. 



4. Cane-sugar syrup fed to bees is inverted, 

 and, when stored, is so like our best honey 

 that chemical methods cannot detect it. 



5. Cane-sugar syrup, unless fed to bees, 

 could be easily told. The bees, by digesting 

 the syrup, change it as they do the nectar 

 which they gather from flowers, which is 

 also cane sugar. 



G. We know that honey is largely adulter- 

 ated: but almost always, if not always, by 

 feeding glucose. This can be detected. 

 Thus we can successfully fight this evil. 

 Prof. Wiley will help us. Let us declare the 

 battle on. 



7. I urged at the Detroit convention, in 

 1890. that the Bee- Keepers' Union wage this 

 warfare. It has done grand service. It can 

 do this work. As a member and ofiicer, I 

 vote that it assume this added responsibility 

 and win yet grander laurels. Why not? It 

 can crush the evil. 



8. Bee-keepers do not adulterate. Dealers 

 —wholesale dealers— do this. If bee-keeping 

 dealers have done it, they, with all of their 

 kin, should be exposed and punished. If we 

 will, we can down the enemy. I.vote aye. 



A. .J. Cook. 

 Ao'l, College, Mich., Sept. 3." 



