OP MANAGING BEES. 65 



hold what remains. Bees, in our view, never made a particle 

 of honey since their creation ; all they can do is to collect It 

 together where it is found by them, and separate it from 

 dirt and foreign substances mixed with the honey, but not 

 incorporated with it; and to do this service, the honey-bee is 

 the most expert and perfect of all animals ; they can even 

 change back to its original pure, fluid state, honey that has 

 become oxydized or candied from age, by their insect heat, 

 without the least exertion on their part, other than to con- 

 gregate so as to fill up the interstices betwixt the combs, for 

 a few hours. Some plants that are poisonous secrete honey 

 in their blossoms, but the bees have neither the skill nor the 

 power to separate the poison from the pure saccharine mat- 

 ter. Here the poison is incorporated with the honey, and 

 the whole goes into the hive together, and he who swallows 

 the honey swallows the poison along with it. 



Saccharine matter that is secreted in the flowers or blos- 

 soms of trees or plants is pwre honey, each of its kind or 

 quality unadulterated, save by its medicinal properties ; each 

 participating in its own peculiar properties, so that when the 

 honey is taken into the human stomach, it will produce a 

 similar efifect upon the blood that a decoction of the leaves 

 and blossoms of the plant would, that produced the honey. 

 The honey from motherwort is motherwort still ; the fact 

 that the bees have sucked it into their honey-sacs and then 

 ejected it into the comb in the hive, has not changed the 

 nature of the fluid, except giving it a slight taste of insect 

 heat, which is characteristic of all honey, after it has been 

 collected and deposited by these insects. The taste that is 

 communicated to all saccharine matter tbat has passed this 

 ordeal is calculated to deceive, and requires considerable prac- 

 tice, on the part"*)f the honey-dealer, to distinguish readily 

 the good from the bad, like adulterated wines and other spi- 

 6* 



