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100 



SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



some of its members claim what has 

 been proven as to the nature of honey, 

 and other members claim that honey or 

 nectar taken from the hive freshly 

 gathered and evaporated outside of the 

 hive is the equal of that which has 

 gone through all the stages in the hive 

 until capped and fully evaporated to 

 the consistency of well-ripened honey. 



N. E. France, 

 Treasurer and General Manager. 



The obvious superiority of honey 

 over many other products as a food, 

 lies in part in its source — fragrant blos- 

 soms. It is gathered by the most fas- 

 tidious and cleanly insect known; this 

 insect storing the honey, and in the 

 process of ripening the nectar, in the 

 combs and moving it about from cell 

 to cell, inverting the saccharine sub- 

 stance and making in reality a pre- 

 digested food. Such foods are highly 

 prized, and in other hues very high 

 prices must be paid for them. Nor is 

 this all. Honey is not only a sweet, 

 but it contains an essential oil, im- 

 parting to it an aroma peculiar to the 

 source from which it springs; this with 

 our commercial honey, pleasing the pal- 

 ate and bringing into beneficial action 

 the organs of digestion and assimila- 



tion. That the honey in the process 

 of production before explained, is in- 

 verted, has been proven, the latest evi- 

 dence being by Prof. Phillips, of the 

 Washington Apiarian Experimental 

 Station. 



We know that during the process of 

 evaporating nectar outside of the hive, 

 no honey will be inverted. We can 

 therefore not contend that the pro- 

 duct of this artificial ripening is as 

 valuable as that of the more natural 

 process. Some may not be willing — 

 more, I know some are not willing — 

 to recognize this inversion by the bee. 

 The question of the fact is not de- 

 pendent upon such a recognition any 

 more than that the fact that my friend 

 will not recognize me proves that I 

 am non-existent. 



Formic Acid. 



That the percentage of formic acid 

 varies in various honeys, we know. 

 Some 8 years ago, when conducting a 

 series of experiments for the Ontario 

 Government, I discovered this, and the 

 experiment has since been verified in 

 Europe. Finding that, when bees 

 worked on buckwheat the sting was 

 more painful, I thought that the per- 

 centage of formic acid in buckwheat 

 honey might be greater than in white 

 honey. A sample of clover and also 

 of buckwheat honey was analyzed, and 

 it was found in the sample sent that 

 buckwheat had about twice as much 

 formic acid as clover honey. I have 

 since realized that this experiment was 

 very crude, and in this direction (for- 

 mic acid) there is still open a wide 

 field for research. We do not yet know 

 if the percentage of formic acid in 

 honey varies in varieties of bees. That 

 is, do Italian, black, Cyprian, Caucasian, 

 etc., show a marked difference in this 

 respect? If not, do individual colonies 

 show the difference? Does honey gath- 

 ered early have less formic acid than 

 honey gathered late, irrespective of the 

 source? If so, may it be because honey 

 gathered early has longer time and 

 more favorable conditions under which 

 it can thicken and be less liable to fer- 

 ment than that gathered later? At 

 what stage, or stages, of ripening is the 

 formic acid put in by the bees, and 

 how? Is it added to as are the secre- 

 tions which invert the honey, or is it 

 added through the organ of defence? 

 I am not afraid to uphold or condemn 



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