28 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



The honey as it is collected in the flower and carried 

 to the hive is not honey proper. The nectar of flowers 

 is a thin sweet juice which may be properly called crude 

 honey. This is collected by bees into the hives, and 

 there converted into honey proper. During the day, the 

 bees collect as much of this crude honey as they can, and 

 place it in open cells till night, when they re-swallow it, 

 thus making it into real honey. In this process it be- 

 comes thicker and sweeter. Before it is swallowed a 

 second time, it readily runs out of cells whenever the 

 hive is turned up or held a little to one side ; but after 

 having been put twice through the stills of bees, it is 

 not easily disturbed in the cells. Besides, the taste and 

 quality of the honey are greatly improved by the change 

 effected on being re-swallowed. Doubtless much water is 

 eliminated during the process. 



Crude honey being thin and watery, will not keep : 

 like badly-preserved fruit, it soon becomes mouldy and 

 sour ; but after it has been made into honey proper, it 

 wUl keep good for two or three years, if not for a longer 

 period of time. 



The honey of one kind of plant is different in some 

 small degree from the honey of other kinds of plants — dif- 

 ferent in substance, colour, and taste. For instance, the 

 honey collected from the flowers of gooseberry and syca- 

 more trees is of a sea-green colour, the flavour of which 

 cannot well be surpassed for excellence. It has been 

 often said by others that the honey from wild thyme is 

 richer than any other honey. We have never lived 

 where this plant grows abundantly, and have not tasted 

 honey from it. The honey collected from the flowers of 

 white or Dutch clover is clearer — more like spring-water 

 — than any honey gathered from other flowers known in 

 England. It pleases the eye better than honey of a higher 



