SUGAR, MOLASSES, CONFECTIONS, AND HONEY. 745 



apiary interests. In an editorial in the American Bee Journal, of July 

 25, 1888, the following language occurs : 



We are not ignorant of the fact that extracted honey was quite generally adulter- 

 ated when it brought higher prices, but now its price is so low that it will not pay to 

 adulterate it, and it is, in consequence, hardly ever done. Persons will not adulter- 

 ate any article when it will not pay them to do so. Adulteration of honey (now a 

 thing of the past) we fought with all our energies until it ceased to exist. 



This also appears to be the opinion of Mr. C. O. Perrine, expressed in 

 a letter found on another page. Evidently, however, it still pays to adul- 

 terate honey, as the data obtained in the following tables clearly indicate. 



METHODS OF JUDGING OF THE PURITY OF HONEY. 



Although not a matter of national legislation, the standard of pure 

 honey is not hard to fix. By universal consent it maybe stated that a 

 pure honey is the nectar of flowers and other saccharine exudations of 

 plants, gathered by bees and stored in cells built at least in part by the 

 bees themselves. Honey made by feeding bees glucose, sugar, invert 

 sugar, or other saccharine substances is not pure honey. Nor is that 

 pure honey which is made by adding to an empty or partially filled 

 honeycomb glucose or any other saccharine substance. 



Strained honey, that is, honey separated from the comb, is pure when 

 it contains only the materials of a liquid nature mentioned in the defi- 

 nition of pure honey given above, with such accidental solid particles, 

 such as pollen, parts of bees, fragments of comb, etc., as would natur- 

 ally be found therein. 



PROPERTIES OF PURE HONEY. 



Polarisation. A pure honey has, with rare exceptions, at ordinary 

 temperatures, a slight left-handed rotary effect 011 a plane of polarized 

 light. This Irevo-rotatory power is less than that produced by pure in- 

 vert cane sugar. Measured as degrees on a cane-sugar scale, with 

 normal sugar weight, a pure honey will rarely show more than 20 

 at 20 C. A greater number than this may not be conclusive of adul- 

 teration, but may well be looked on with suspicion. 



Water. The content of water in a pure honey may vary from 12 to 

 20 per cent. It is rarely as low as 12 and does not frequently exceed 

 20 per cent. 



Color. The color of pure honey may vary from almost a water white 

 through various shades of amber to deep brown or black. The source 

 from which the honey is taken, the manner in which it is stored, and 

 the length of time it has been kept are the chief factors in determining 

 variations in color. White clover gives almost a colorless honey, while 

 golden rod and other highly colored flowers produce a deeper-colored 

 article. 



Ash. The content of ash is very small, varying from a mere trace to 

 0.30 per cent. A higher content of ash than this will be due to dust 



