THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



G13 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Is Honey Poisonous? 



A. OSBORN. 



On page o67 is an article headed as 

 above, to wiiich I desire to add my 

 mite in the way of personal knowl- 

 ediie and experience. The subject of 

 poisonous honey is nothing new to 

 me. I do not believe that pure honey 

 is poisonous in the least ; yet tliere 

 are some persons who claim that they 

 dare not eat even a very little of it. 

 Some persons tell me that if they 

 would eat only a little of it that it 

 would cause cramping pains, colic or 

 sickness at the stomach. Now, these 

 persons were all perfectly honest in 

 their belief that it was the honey 

 which caused all this mischief. 



I say that any one can eat pure ex- 

 tracted honey and be in no danger of 

 any bad effects. After I had ex- 

 plained the cause of the trouble to 

 such persons, in every instance I have 

 succeeded in getting them to eat 

 honey without any bad effects. I 

 desire to ask this question : When a 

 bee stings you, what is it which causes 

 the pain ? Is it simply the sting 

 piercing into your flesh, or is it the 

 poison which is deposited in the flesh 

 through the sting V I think that you 

 all will say that it is the poison. I 

 presume that most of you have noticed 

 on opening a hive on a cool day, or 

 early in the morning, that the bees 

 would be buzzing around on the 

 combs with their stings pointing out- 

 ward, and on the point of the sting 

 would be a drop of fluid which is the 

 poison that the bee deposits in your 

 flesh that causes the pain from the 

 bee- sting. Xow, the bees being dis- 

 turbed so often in this way, causes 

 them to run all over the combs, and 

 this drop of fluid either drops off or 

 is rubbed off on the comb or the cap- 

 ping of the comb honey and dries 

 there ; and among so many bees in a 

 full colony, and disturbed so often as 

 they are, causes a large quantity of 

 this poisonous fluid to be deposited 

 on the comb and remains there, as it 

 soon dries. If a poisonous substance 

 will give such great pain externally 

 what hinders it from giving pain 

 when taken internally V There is 

 where the whole secret of this poison- 

 ous honey is. All who eat comb 

 honey, eat more or less of this bee- 

 poison, and not poisonous honey as 

 some call it. 



To all " lovers of honey " who claim 

 that they cannot eat honey without 

 its causing them colicky or cramping 

 pains. I will say : Try eating pure 

 extracted honey'; not strained lioney, 

 as that is as unsafe to eat as the comb 

 honey. Try eating a little extracted 

 honey at a time, and you will soon 

 become eaters as well as lovers of 

 honey. Try it, and be convinced that 

 pure honey is not poisonous. 



Now, probably Dr. Tinker or some 

 one else will ask the question, " Why 

 does not the eating of comb honey 

 affect all persons alike.if it is the bee- 

 poison on the comb which causes the 

 trouble V In the Hrst place, if all per- 

 sons' stomachs were the same in every 

 way, and all persons' constitutions 

 were the same in every way, then you 

 would see all affected alike with what- 

 ever they eat or drink, all being in 

 same condition of health ; therefore, 

 all persons not being constituted alike 

 is tlie cause of the different effects of 

 the same substance taken into differ- 

 ent stomachs. 



Centerville, Iowa. 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



The Origin of Honey-Dew. 



CHAS. DADANT. 



As I see two contradictory opinions 

 in regard to honey-dew, I desire to 

 bring before the bee-keepers a few 

 quotations from a French book, Les 

 Nectaires^ containing 130 figures, pub- 

 lished in 1879 by Mr. Gaston Bonnier, 

 maitre des conferences aTecole normale 

 superieiire de Paris. 



In this book Mr. Bonnier relates 

 innumerable experiences made by 

 himself and scores of other scientists 

 of France, Germany, England, Italy, 

 etc. He writes on page 165: "The 

 nectar is produced by floral and extra- 

 floral nectaries. The floral nectar is 

 what is known as honey ; the extra- 

 floral nectar is known in France as 

 miellee, and in the United States as 

 honey-dew." 



In some parts of France, in Saone 

 and Loire for instance, the bee-keep- 

 ers bring tlieir bees in the vicinity of 

 plants producing this miellee. The 

 sugared liquid contains the same 

 sugar as honey. 



Mr. Bonnier has seen honey-dew 

 without aphidte, on two kinds of oaks, 

 ash, two kinds of linden, sorle-tree, 

 barberry, blackberry, raspberry, pop- 

 lar, birch, two kinds of maples, and 

 hazei-nut. These trees were covered 

 with insects. 



On page 78 : " The sugars belong 

 to two general groups. The sac- 

 charoses and the glucoses. The first 

 are found accumulated in certain 

 parts of the vegetals, very often 

 plainly located as in beets, sugar-cane, 

 and carrots. The second are spread 

 in nearly all the parts of the plant as 

 long as it is growing." 



On page 89: "We can study the 

 accumulations of the saccharoses and 

 glucoses in the nectariferous tissues 

 of the plants. We find them: 1. In 

 the cotyledons ; 2. in the leaves ; 3. in 

 the stipules ; 4. in the bracteas ; 5. be- 

 tween the leaf and the twig ; 6. in the 

 sepals ; 7. in the petals ; 8. between 

 the sepals and the stamens ; 9. in the 

 stamens ; 10. between the sepals, 

 petals or stamens, and the carpels ; 11. 

 in the carpels ; 12. at the common 

 base of all the floral organs." 



Then he related all the experiments 

 which he made on all these parts of 

 the plants, with quotations of a num- 

 ber of other experiments made by 

 scientists. Page 149 : "• Generally it 



is in a state of vapor that water is 

 perspired by the tissues of the plants; 

 yet, in certain circumstances, when 

 some tissues emit a great amount of 

 water, and when the air is loaded 

 witli dampness, a part of the water 

 remains condensed on the epiderm, 

 and exit in part in a liquid state." 



The vfater, which passes through 

 the tissues and exit at the surface of 

 the plants, may contain several solu- 

 ble substances. It is easy to under- 

 stand that, according to the tissues 

 crossed, the proportion of the sub- 

 stances dissolved will vary. Of course 

 the water which has crossed the 

 sugared tissues is abundantly loaded 

 with sugar. A leaf can or cannot 

 emit liquid, all the other conditions 

 being the same, this emission depend- 

 ing on its anatomical structure. 



On page 1-51 : " Under the influence 

 of several causes, the liquid absorbed 

 by the plant arrives in the nectari- 

 ferous tissues, it loads itself with 

 sugared substances, and, in a number 

 of plants it may exit, in a great many 

 circumstances, in the form of sugared 

 liquid.'' 



On page 1.57 : " On account of the 

 evaporation which occurs at the sur- 

 face of the plant, the quantity of 

 liquid will be more or less abundant 

 according to the greater or smaller 

 dampness of the air. So, dampness 

 of air, moisture of the soil and tem- 

 perature cause the smaller or greater 

 volume of the nectar produced, and 

 the quantity of the water that it con- 

 tains." 



A great maiiy of the experiments 

 made by Mr. Bonnier, took place at 

 Lonye, in the apiary and with the aid 

 of Mr. De Layens, a w'ell-known 

 French bee-keeper, whose apiary was 

 lately pictured in the Bee Journal. 



I beg to give a little of my experi- 

 ence about this honey-dew : As my 

 home is joining a timber, I have had 

 many occasions of seeing this pro- 

 duction of honey-dew ; yet, so far, I 

 have been unable to see any aphis on 

 the trees. 



I beg the partisans of this aphis 

 theory to answer the following ques- 

 tions : In March, when a very few 

 warm days have just begun to swell 

 the buds of the oaks, if we have a 

 sudden diminution of temperature, 

 we are sure of seeing bees working on 

 the buds of oaks ; yet these buds are 

 hardly swelled. From where did 

 these aphidie come, which have pro- 

 duced this honey dew ? Is it not the 

 result of the emission of sugared 

 licmid by the stipules V" 



During this spring we have had 

 several sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture, every one followed by honey- 

 dew ; why after such changes, or when 

 a cold night followed a warm day, and 

 not every day 'f Of course I do not 

 pretend that the bee-keepers who saw 

 the aphidie on the leaves of maples, 

 were mistaken ; but 1 think that the 

 great number of aphidaj was caused 

 by an abnormal production of honey- 

 dew and not the cause of it. 



When a tree emits honey-dew. while 

 some other of the same kind does 

 not, it is either because one is in a 

 soil more damp than the other, or 

 because it is in a morbid state, a 



