482 HONEY HANDLING. 



ember. We speak of honey harvested in the Mississippi 

 valley ; such as clover, basswood, knot-weed, golden rod, 

 buckwheat, Spanish-needle, etc. 



831. Of California honey, we can say nothing, having 

 never handled it. But we have handled Louisiana honey, 

 which, we were told, would not granulate before a year, and 

 we had scarcely had it three weeks in our cold climate, before 

 it began to granulate. The only ripe honey which did not 

 granulate, was a lot of Spanish-needle honey, which had 

 been extracted late in November. It remained liquid until 

 sold, a month or two later, and we ascribed its not granu- 

 lating to the late harvesting of it. 



832. Every bee-keeper has noticed that, at times, honey 

 hardens in very coarse and irregular granules, that look like 

 lumps of sugar, and have no adherence with one another, 

 with a small amount of liquid honey interposed between 

 them ; and that at other times, the candying is compact, 

 and can be compared to the hardening of lard. 



The first kind of granulation is always produced in honey 

 harvested, like clover or basswood, during the warm months 

 of the year ; while the soft candying is prevalent in the 

 honey extracted in the Fall. In France, coarsely granulated 

 honey is held as less valuable than the fine grained honey, 

 and there is a good reason for this preference, for the 

 coarsely granulated honey Cannot be kept as well as the fine 

 grained. 



In this country also, coarsely granulated honey sells with 

 less facility — especially because many ignorant persons 

 imagine that it has been adulterated with sugar, and that 

 the coarse grains are lumps of sugar. 



We think that this coarse granulation is the result of 

 an aggregation of particles, which, having an affinity for 

 each other, unite, while the honey remains liquid in Sum- 

 mer. 



In such honey, the liquid parts come to the surface, and 



