190 HONEY. 



which is laid up in store for winter, is placed in the 

 most inaccessible parts of the hive, and closed in the 

 cells with waxen lids." 



" In the Philosophical Transactions for 1792, Mr. 

 Hunter has stated that whatever time the contents of 

 the honey bags may be retained, they still remain pure 

 and unaltered by the digestive process. Mr. Polhill, a 

 gentleman to whom the public are indebted for several 

 articles in Rees's Cyclopedia appertaining to bees, is 

 also of this opinion. Messrs. Kirby and Spence do not 

 admit this statement ; as the nectar of flowers is not of 

 so thick a consistency as honey, they think it must 

 undergo some change in the stomach of the bee. 

 They are countenanced in this opinion by Swammer- 

 dam and Reaumur ; the latter has observed that if 

 there was a deficiency of flowers at the season of 

 honey-gathering, and the bees were furnished with 

 sugar, they filled their cells with honey differing in 

 no other respect from honey collected in the usual 

 way, but in its possessing a somewhat higher flavor, 

 and in its never candying nor even losing its fluidity 

 by long keeping. 



" The naturalists just named, highly and deserv- 

 edly as they are celebrated, are not borne out in their 

 opinions, either by my own experiments or those of 

 my apiarian correspondents ; we have each tried sup- 

 plying bees with syrup of sugar as a resource for win- 

 ter, without finding any material change in it after it 

 was stored. It might be somewhat clearer, but no 

 other difference whatever was perceptible." Bevan. 



