Nature of Honey, 145 
CHAPTER TV. 
Propucts or Bees; THEIR ORIGIN AND FuNc- 
TION. 
Among all insects, bees stand first in the variety of the 
useful products which they give us, and, next to the silk- 
moths, in the importance of these products. They seem 
the more remarkable and important, in that so few insects 
yield articles of commercial value. True, the cochineal 
insect, a species of bark-louse, gives us an important color- 
ing material; the lac insect, of the same family, gives us 
the important element of our best glue—shellac; the blis- 
ter-beetles afford an article prized by the physician, while 
we are indebted to one of the gall-flies for a valuable ele- 
ment of ink; but the honey-bee affords not only a delicious 
article of food, but also another article of no mean com- 
mercial rank, namely, wax. We will proceed to examine 
the various products which come from bees, 
HONEY. 
Of course the first product of bees, not ‘only to attract 
attention but also in importance, is honey. And what is 
honey? It is digested nectar, a sweet neutral substance 
gathered from the flowers. This nectar contains much 
water, though the amount is very variable, a mixture of 
several kinds of sugar and a small amount of nitrogenous 
matter in the form of pollen. Nectar is peculiar in the 
large amount of sucrose or cane sugar which it contains. 
Often there is nearly or quite as much of this as of all the 
other sugars. We cannot therefore give the composition 
of honey. It will be as various as the flowers from which 
itis gathered. Again the thoroughness of the digestion 
will affect the composition of honey. This digestion is 
doubtless accomplished through the aid of the saliva—that 
from the racemose glands of the head and thorax (Fig. 38, 
8, c)—aided possibly by the acid secretion of the stomach, 
The composition of honey is of course very varied. Thus 
analyses give water all the way from 15 to 30 per cent. 
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