PRODUCTION AND CARE OF EXTRACTED HONEY. 11 



thoroughly ripened before it was extracted. The granulated portion 

 is then allowed to liquefy and is recommended as a very fine quality 

 of honey. This practice is in no way permissible, as will be readily 

 seen if the composition of honey is studied. Honey is made up of 

 dextrose and levulose in about equal quantities, sucrose, a certain 

 amount of ash, and water. In granulation, the dextrose crystallizes 

 readily and the levulose probably does not granulate at all. If, then, 

 the liquid portion, consisting largely of levulose, sucrose, and water, 

 is removed b}^ draining or by pressure, the remaining portion is not 

 honey, but dextrose. However fine the flavor of such a compound 

 may be, it is not honey and can not truthfully be sold as such. 



Since honey separates into its component parts in granulation, it 

 is very necessary that all the honey in the receptacle be liquefied and 

 thoroughly mixed before any portion is removed from it for bottling 

 or canning. If, for example, honey is in a 60-pound can and is to be 

 transferred to 1-pound bottles, it is necessary that the entire 60 

 pounds be liquefied and mixed before any is poured out into bottles, 

 in order that all the bottles may contain honey according to the legal 

 standard. Unless this is done, some of the bottles will contain a 

 high percentage of dextrose and will granulate rapidly, while others 

 will contain a preponderance of levulose and will not granulate for a 

 long time. Unless this mixing is done thoroughly, none of the bot- 

 tles will contain absolutely pure honey. In order to protect himself, 

 the bee keeper must be very careful on this point. Some bee keepers 

 prefer to pour the honey cold into the bottles and heat it afterwards 

 before sealing. As a matter of convenience this has many points in 

 its favor, but in view of the separation into component parts which 

 may take place it is a bad practice. The honey should first be heated 

 and liquefied completely, especially if honeys from several species of 

 flowers are to be blended. 



As previously stated, there has existed and possibly still exists a 

 popular idea that granulation indicates adulteration by the addition 

 of cane sugar. This is of course untrue, since pure honeys do granu- 

 late solid. Many bee keepers in combating this idea have stated that 

 this very granulation is a test of the purity of the honey. This 

 statement, so frequently made, is equally untrue, since invert sugar, 

 one of the adulterants sometimes used, will also crystallize solid as 

 rapidly as do most honeys. 



Age seems to affect honey greatly. Repeated granulation and lique- 

 faction, as the temperature varies year after year, in some way a fleets 

 the chemical composition of the honey, changing the product so that 

 it may not have the composition that it had at first. Some honey 

 thirty-five years old, submitted to this Department, was found to 

 contain too much sucrose. A sample of the same honey had pre- 

 viously been analyzed by two official chemists and declared to be 



