Granulation of Honey. 149 
generally granulate, if the temperature be reduced below 
7o°. Like many other substances, most honey, if heated 
and sealed while hot, will not crystallize till it is unsealed. 
In case of granulation the sucrose and glucose crystallize 
in the mellose. Some honey, as that from the South and 
some from California, seems to remain liquid indefinitely. 
Some kinds of our own honey crystallize much more read- 
ily than others. I have frequently observed that thick, ripe 
honey granulates more slowly than thin honey. The only 
sure (?) test of the purity of honey, if there be any, is that 
of the polariscope. This, even if decisive, is not practical 
except in the hands of the scientist. The most practical 
test is that of granulation, though this is not wholly relia- 
ble. Granulated honey is almost certainly pure. Occa- 
sionally genuine honey and of superior excellence refuses, 
even in a zero atmosphere, to crystallize. 
When there are no flowers, or when the flowers yield 
no sweets, the bees, ever desirous to add to their stores, 
frequently essay to rob other colonies, and often visit the 
refuse of cider mills, or suck up the oozing sweets of vari- 
ous plant or bark-lice, thus adding, may be, unwholesome 
food to their usually delicious and refined stores. It is a 
curious fact that the queen never lays her maximum num- 
ber of eggs except when storing is going on. In fact, in 
the interims of honey-gathering, egg-laying not infre- 
quently ceases altogether. The queen seems discreet, 
gauging the size of her family by the probable means of 
support. Or it is quite possible that the workers control 
affairs by withholding the chyle, and thus the queen stops 
perforce. Syrian bees are much more likely to continue 
brood rearing when no honey is being collected than are 
either German or Italian bees, 
Again, in times of extraordinary yields of honey the 
storing is very rapid and the hive becomes so filled that the 
queen is unable to lay her full quota of eggs; in fact, I 
have seen the brood very much reduced in this way, which, 
of course, greatly depletes the colony. This might be 
called ruinous prosperity. 
The natural use of the honey is to furnisn, in part, the 
