September, 1914. 



American l^aa Journal 



hive. I found four dead mice in hives 

 this spring, and in no hive evidence of 

 mouse occupation. 



I am now sending out copy to papers 

 and the rural magazines extolling 

 honey as a cure for rheumatism. Since 

 I caught my wife, I thought to quit 

 lying, but cannot resist the te.nptation 

 to copy the Karo Kusses and patent 

 medicine fakirs' methods of making 

 business. " Have you tried the /lunev 

 ciiri- for rheumatism ?" is one line I 

 am circulating. I advise one or two 

 tablespoonfuls five times a day, and 

 drink no water for at least one hour 

 after taking a dose. Five tablespoon- 

 fuls per family in the United States per 

 day would amount to .J0,000,000 ounces, 

 3,12.5,000 pounds, or 200,000 gallons, 

 worth that many dollars. In a year 

 that would amount to about . Fig- 

 ure it out yourself, and see if it is 

 worth lying about. Xearly four times 

 the amount of honey now sold in the 

 United Staies annually. 



To save walking I use a small tele- 

 scope to look over my decoy hives. 



Working with the bees recently, 

 when they were particularly irritable, I 

 thought to try peppermint water on my 

 person and the hives, and to my delight 

 the angry buzzing ceased, and the bees 

 quit stinging. I have not had oppor- 

 tunity to experiment further, but shall 

 do so as soon as I find time. I think 

 the water should be quite strong, say 

 ten drops of the oil to half a pint of 

 water. 



Buck Grove, Iowa. 



Honey and Biology 



BV J. A. HEBERLE, B. S. 



[Bast'if on a Ufture of Dr. Thoeni, fiuhlis/iiui in 



the Sstlno. Bicttt'iizfifur^.) 



HONEY was highly esteemed in olden 

 times, as w^ll as now, but the rea- 

 sons for this esteem have under- 

 gone some change. The ancients be- 

 lieved that the honey "fell as gentle 

 dew from heaven," and was gathered 

 by the bees. According to the writ- 

 ings of Dioscorides and Plinius, this 

 was believed by the Greeks and the 

 Romans, and seems to have been gen- 

 erally actepted until about the middle 

 of the Kith Century. At that time two 

 Franciscan monks showed that the 

 sweet juice — the nectar — was but a 

 secretion from the plants. 



At the end of the 18th Century honey 

 was studied by chemists, who showed 

 that it mainly consisted of three kinds 

 of sugars, principally invert sugar, 

 some cane sugar, a little dextrin, 

 water, formic, acetic, lactic, and .suc- 

 cinic acids, also small amounts of albu- 

 men, mineral and coloring matters. 

 With this was shown that honey is a 

 very nutritious and very wholesome 

 food, and quite important for the hu- 

 man body. 



The study of the preparation of honey 

 by the bee led to the discovery that the 

 honey contained other substances be- 

 sides those that were shown by chemi- 

 cal analysis. Erienmeyer and Planta 

 succeeded in showing that in the prep- 

 aration of honey, cane sugar was con- 

 verted into invert sugar, and starch 

 into dextrin and sugar. These pecu- 



liar substances which caused these 

 changes during the preparation of 

 honey are called enzymes or ferments. 

 Later, Auzinger showed th.it besides 

 the ferments which made the invert 

 sugar called " invertase," and those 

 which change starch into dextrin and 

 sugar called " diastase," there is still 

 another ferment in the honey called 

 " catalase." This ferment has the 

 powerof converting hydrogen peroxide 

 into water and oxygen. Marpmann 

 claiii s to have found still other enzy- 

 motic bodies, but this has not yet been 

 corroborated. 



The nature of these ferments is not 

 quite understood ; they seem to be 

 boun I to the albumen molecules. Only 

 the effect they produce is known; but 

 not how they come into existence; 

 how they are produced. It is only 

 known that they are derived from 

 living cells. The ferments are, for the 

 live process of all plants and animals, 

 of the utmost importance. For in- 

 stance, in the digestion and nourish- 

 ing of the body they are indispensable, 

 since without them assimilation is not 

 possible. The ferments are quite sus- 

 ceptible to heat temperatures. A lit- 

 tle less than 100 degrees C. injures 

 them, and if the heat continues for a 

 longer period they are destroyed. 

 Since the ferments are derived from 

 living cells, their functions are called 

 biological. 



The high esteem of genuine honey 

 as food, dainty, and for its curative 

 property for mankind is well justified 

 from its chemical composition as well 

 as from its biological qualities. This 

 high esteem of honey, the great de- 

 mand for it, and its price compared 

 with other sweets have been the cause 

 of artificial preparations, substitutes to 

 defraud the consumer. Until recently 

 the examination of honey included 

 the appearance, taste, color, aroma, a 



microscopical examination, a quantita- 

 tive chemical analysis for its principal 

 constituents, dextrose, levulose, suc- 

 rose, dextrin, also tests for other sub- 

 stances that were commonly used in 

 adulterating honey, etc. 



Since the composition of honey va- 

 ries considerably in different localities, 

 sometimes even at very short distances, 

 this is especially the case in Switzer- 

 land and parts of Germany, the difTer- 

 ence as to the time of extracting, etc, 

 it is very difTicult by chemical analysis 

 to state positively that the sample un- 

 der examination is adulterated, because 

 the natural product shows such great 

 variation in its physical and chemical 

 composition. 



This task is made the more difficult 

 because the adulterators, tn ^rox. have 

 very able chemists to make these arti- 

 ficial products. It is easy for them to 

 mix the principal constituents that can 

 be determined by chemical analysis in 

 the same proportion as they are found 

 in honey. It is easy for them to make 

 the color and the consistency as 

 wanted. To delude as to aroma, some 

 natural honey is mixed with the arti- 

 ficial product, so that it is the most 

 difficult of all food analyses. [A honey 

 examination in Switzerland and Ger- 

 many seems even more difficult than in 

 the United States.] 



The chemical and physical methods 

 often fail to positively prove adultera- 

 tion. The biological qualities of the 

 honey are a very important criterion, 

 since up to the present it has not been 

 possible to produce these ferments in 

 a pure state, besides they would be so 

 costly that they could not be used for 

 the preparation of artificial honey. The 

 diastase reaction has proved useful in 

 the examination of honey as to its 

 purity. 



Markt Oberdorf, Bavaria, Germany. 

 ( To be continued.) 



Home of B. \. Ai.drich— "The Hol'se the Bees Built.' 



