174 THE BEB-KEBPER'S guide ; 



ter — fifteen hundredths of one percent — which I suppose to be 

 mainly malate of lime ; a little of the essential oils which pos- 

 sibly give the characteristic flavor of the different kinds of 

 honey, and more or less coloring- matter, more in buckwheat 

 honey, less in basswood. There is also a little acid — formic 

 acid — which probably aids to digest the nectar, and possibly 

 with the saliva, may, like the acid gastric juice of our own 

 stomachs, resist putrefaction, or any kind of fermentation. It 

 has been urged that this is added to the honey by the bees 

 dropping poison from the sting. I much doubt this theory. It 

 is more reasonable, however, than the absurd view that the 

 bee uses its sting to polish its cells. If the poison-glands can 

 secrete formic acid, why can not the glands of the stomach ? 

 Analogy, no less than common sense, favors this view. The 

 acid of honey is often recognizable to the taste, as every lover 

 of honey knows. The acid is also shown by use of blue litmus. 

 The specific gravity varies greatly of course, as we should 

 expect from the great variation in the amount of water. I 

 have found very thick honey to have a specific gravity of 1.40 

 to 1 SO. The fact that honey is digested nectar or sucrose, 

 shows that in eating honey our food is partially digested for 

 us, the cane-sugar is changed to a sugar that can be readily 

 absorbed and assimilated. 



I have fed bees pure cane-sugar, and, when stored, the 

 late Prof. R. F. Kedzie found that nearly all of this sugar was 

 transformed in much the same way that the nectar is changed 

 which is taken from the flowers. 



It is probable that the large compound racemose glands 

 in the head and thorax of the bees (Fig. 59, Ihg, Ig, and Fig. 

 61) secrete an abundant ferment which hastens these transfor- 

 mations which the sugars undergo while in the honey-stomach 

 of the bee. I once fed several pounds of cane-sugar syrup at 

 night to the bees. I extracted some of this the next morning, 

 and more after it was capped. Both samples were analyzed by 

 three able chemists — Profs. Kedzie, Scovell, and Wiley — and 

 the sample from the capped honey was found to be much bet- 

 ter digested. This shows that the digestion continues in the 

 comb. Much of the water escapes after the honey is stored. 



The method of collecting honey has already been described. 



