234 HONEY. 



below the usual heat of a hive, is calculated to 

 excite our admiration of the instinctive intelligence 

 of the bee, which leads it to distribute its treasure 

 in small cells and to seal them closely over, 

 whereby the honey can be preserved from fermen- 

 tation for a long period, even in a high tempera- 

 ture. PROUST says that granulated honey is ca- 

 pable of being separated into two parts, one of 

 which is liquid, the other dry and not deliquescent, 

 crystallizable in its manner and less saccharine than 

 sugar. The Jens of Moldavia and the Ukraine 

 prepare from honey a sort of sugar which is solid 

 and as white as snow, which they send to the 

 distilleries at Dantzic. They expose the honey 

 to frost for three weeks, in some place where 

 neither sun nor snow can reach it, and in a vessel 

 which is a bad conductor of caloric, by which 

 process the honey, without being congealed, be- 

 comes clear and hard like sugar. 



Prior to the discovery of sugar, honey must 

 have been an article of great utility ; and notwith- 

 standing that discovery, if we may judge from the 

 quantity imported into this country, and the price 

 at which it sells when of fine quality, it may still 

 be regarded as a commodity of great importance, 

 and worthy of more attention from our rural 

 population than it in general obtains. In the 

 Ukraine, some of the peasants have four or Jive 

 hundred hives each, andjind their bees more profi- 



