SUGAR, MOLASSES, CONFECTIONS, AND HONEY. 799 



tion itself is a right-handed body, I naturally expected to find the honey made there- 

 from also right-handed ; in this expectation, however, I was disappointed. The 

 direct polarization of the honey, under normal conditions at 31, was 13 divisionsof 

 the cane sugar scale and the total reducing sugar which it contained, calculated as dex- 

 trose, was 70.42. Not only, therefore, was this sample of pine-tree honey left-handed, 

 but it was also left-handed to a degree greater than that ordinarily exhibited by 

 honeys. From this fact the inference is to be drawn either that in gathering the 

 honey the bees exerted upon it an inverting effect which made it left-handed, or else 

 Mr. Evans was mistaken in supposing that the bees had derived their stock of honey 

 from the trees in question. 



The peculiar climatic conditions of last winter presented, through the whole sea- 

 son, the mildness of spring, affording, perhaps, an exceptional opportunity for the 

 development of the pine-tree honey-dew, and I am sorry that my attention was not 

 called to the matter in time to have secured much larger quantities of this interest- 

 ing substance. 



The probable existence in honey of a right-handed body, not sucrose or dextrose, 

 was indicated by me in a paper published in the American Apiculturist, Vol. 3, No. 

 12, 1885. In this paper it is shown that a varying amount of substance, which I sup- 

 posed then to be pure dextrin, was found in honey, amounting in this case to as much 

 as 4 per cent. 



Amthor has found* that honey gathered from pine forests contains dextrin, as he 

 supposed at that time, even in such quantities as to become dextro-rotatory. 



Klinger claims that this phenomenon is not confined exclusively to honey of conif- 

 erous origin. At that time I was led to express, in the paper referred to, my doubt 

 of the truth of Lenz's observation,t that after fermentation honey yields no opti- 

 cally active substance. This doubt of mine has been confirmed by subsequent inves- 

 tigations. 



Raumeri calls attention to the fact that the statement of Sieben, that the addition 

 of starch, sirup to honey could with certainty be detected by the residue of right- 

 handed dextrin, is held to be unreliable. According to Sieben, 25 grams of honey 

 dissolved in 150 cc of water and treated with 12 grams pressed yeast (starch-free) 

 are completely fermented in two days. The residue, clarified with aluminium hy- 

 drate and filtered, is completely inactive optically and does not reduce Fehliug solu- 

 tion. Even when treated with hydrochloric acid, to convert any starch or dextrin into 

 dextrose, no reduction takes place. Raumer asserts that Siebeu's observations must 

 have been made on abnormal honeys. 



Amthor has also called attention to the fact that honeys treated according to the 

 method of Siebeu, described above, showed right-handed polarization, and that this 

 phenomenon was supposed to be due to the honey having been largely gathered from 

 pine forests. Honeys of known purity were found to be uniformly right-handed 

 after fermentation. In 3 samples the dextrogyratory power, after fermentation, was 

 expressed by the following numbers respectively, 2.83, 1.58, 2.7. In 3 more samples 

 of doubtful origin the numbers obtained were 2.13, 2.53, 3.23 respectively. 



In the first three samples all possibility of adulteration is positively excluded. It 

 was also established that the bees had not been fed with glucose. It is well known 

 that feeding glucose or ordinary sugar causes foul brood. Only pure rock candy can 

 be used for such purposes. 



It was next deemed of interest to determine the nature of this dextrogyratory body. 

 In order to purify the fermentation residue as completely as possible the method of 

 Schmidt for obtaining the so-called gallisin was employed. 



*Repert. anal. Chem., 1885, 163. 



tChem.Zeit., 8, 613. 



tZeit. f. angew. Chem., 1889, 607. 



Ber. d. chem. Ges., 1884, 17, 1000 and 2456. 



