518 HONEY nANDLING. 



cooks, confectioners and others, whenever there is any danger 

 of scorching the substance heated. 



In the case of honey, the water should not even be allowed 

 to boil. 



835. The increase of honey production has been so great, 

 in a few years, that the consumption has barely kept pace 

 with it. But it will soon take its rank among necessities, like 

 butter or syrups; and change from a luxury to a staple. 



836. Our first crops of extracted honey, were sold readily 

 at wholesale, and at good prices; for it was then that the 

 wholesale dealers and manufacturers were making the largest 

 profits, by mixing the honey, which they bought from bee- 

 keepers, with cheap substances, like glucose, which kept the 

 honey from granulating, and by putting it up in tumblers, 

 with a small piece of comb honey in the center. This honey, 

 or rather mixture of honey, was sold by them usually at lower 

 prices than they had paid for the pure honey. But ready 

 sales in this way did not last long; for, after a year or two, 

 the markets were crowded with this drug. 



Should our readers ever come across suspicious-looking 

 honey, they will find the following a cheap recipe to recognize 

 adulteration : 



"Put in a small vial about one ounce of the honey to be 

 tested, fill the vial with pure cistern water, shake thoroughly 

 to dissolve the honey; then add to the mixture about a thimble- 

 ful of pure alcohol. If the honey is pure the solution will re- 

 main unchanged, but if adulterated with glucose, it will be 

 turbid and whitish. 



' ' This is the means used by the . honey dealers of Paris, to 

 detect adulterated honey." — (Annales de la Societe d 'Apicul- 

 ture de I'Aube.) 



837. We have now United States laws concerning the 

 adulteration of food and it is to be hoped that no honey will 

 ever again be sold that contains a proportion of corn syrup or 

 commercial glucose. This cheap syrup should be sold under 

 its own name. It is of very hiferior value when compared 



