FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 305 



Some years as;o, at the instigation of Editoi' E. R. Root, I wrote a honey 

 leaflet which, has been circulated hy hundreds of thousands. It has been 

 thought well that it should be reproduced in more permanent form by having 

 a place in the present work, and here follows ; 



HONEY AS A WHOLESOME FOOD. 



About 80 pounds of sugar on the average is annually consumed by everv 

 man, woman, and child in the United States. Of course, many u£e less than 

 the average, but to make up for it some consume several times as much. 

 It is only within the last few centuries that sugar has become known, and 

 only within the last generation that refined sugars have become so low in 

 price that they may be commonly used in the poorest families. Formerly 

 honey was the principal sweet, and it was one of the items sent as a 

 propitiatory offering by Jacob to his unrecognized son, the chief ruler of 

 Egypt, 3000 years before the first sugar-refinery was built. 



It would be greatly for the health of the present generation if honey could 

 be at least partially restored to its former place as a common article of diet. 

 The almost universal craving for sweets of some kind shows a real need of 

 the system in that direction, but the excessive use of sugar brings in its train 

 a long list of ills. Besides the various disorders of the alimentary canal, 

 fatal disease of the kidneys is credited with being one of the results of 

 sugar-eating. When cane sugar is taken into the stomach, it cannot be 

 assimilated until first changed bv dlgostitm into grape-sugar. Only too often 

 the over-taxed stomach fails to perform this digestion properly, then comes 

 sour stomach and various dyspeptic phases. Prof. A. J. Cook says : 



" If cane-suga-r is absorbed without change, it will be removed by the 

 kidneys, and may result in their break-down; and physicians may be correct 

 in asserting that the large consumption of cane-sugar by the twentieth- 

 century man is harmful to the great eliminators — the kidneys — and so a 

 menace to health and long life." 



Now, in the woiiderful laboratory of Ibe Lee-hive there is found a sweet 

 that needs no further digestion, having been prepared fully by those wonder- 

 ful chemists — the bees — for prompt assimilation withooit taxing stomach or 

 kidneys. As Prof. Cook says: "There -^'an be no doubt but that in eating 

 honey our digestive machinery is saved work that it would have to perform 

 if we ate cane-sugar; and in case it is over-taxed and feeble, this may be 

 just the respite that will save from a break-down." 



A. I. Root says; "Many people who cannot eat sugar without having 

 unpleasant symiptoms follow, wiU find by careful test that they can eat 

 good, well-ripened honey without any difficulty at all." 



HONEY THE MOST DELICIOUS SAUCE. 



Not only is honey the most wholesome of all sweets, but it is the most 

 delicious. No preparation of man can equal the delicately flavored product 

 of the hive. Millions of flowers are brought under tribute, presenting their 

 tiny cups of dainty nectar to be gathered by the busy riflers ; and when they 

 have brought it to the proper consistency, and stored it in the wondrously 

 wrought waxen cells and sealed it with coverings of snowy whiteness, no 



