84 AUSTRALASIAN 



glucose in such honey may be ascertained as follows : — Place a small 

 quantity in a cup, and add to it some strong tea ; if the poorer grades 

 of glucose are present it will turn dark like ink ; if it is combined with 

 the better quality of glucose, the fact may be determined by the use of 

 a little alcohol ; pure honey will unite with alcohol, but glucose has no 

 affinity for it, and they will separate, like oil and water. A common 

 method of adulteration has been practised by placing a piece of fine 

 comb-honey in a jelly cup and filling it up with glucose. If this were 

 pure honey it would become candied and conceal the comb. Yet these 

 are found unchanged upon our grocers' shelves the year round. Tf 

 honey is put in a can, and heated and sealed, the same as fruit is 

 canned, it will remain liquid until opened. The specimens of comb 

 mentioned above could not have been thus treated, as the process 

 would have melted the comb." 



The only thing which appears to call for remark in the fore- 

 going quotation is the expression that the honey will granulate 

 " if exposed to a sufficiently low temperature," which might 

 lead to the idea (which is sometimes erroneously entertained) 

 that the granulation or solidifying of the honey is owing to a 

 freezing process ; it is, indeed, sometimes rather loosely termed 

 congealed honey. In this climate the honey very often granu- 

 lates most rapidly in the warmest summer weather, and in the 

 height of the honey season it will sometimes become quite 

 solidified within a week or two after being extracted. This 

 appears to be especially the case with white clover honey. 

 Here at Matamata I have known it to become quite solid in 

 the tank in forty-eight hours from the time it was extracted, 

 and this in the middle of summer. Perhaps the most notable 

 exception to the rule of pure honey granulating easily may be 

 found in some of the sage honey of California. I have kept 

 some, obtained from Mr. Wilkin, of San Buena Ventura, all 

 through the winter months, without its showing the slightest 

 sign of change from its liquid state. 



In the process of ripening, most honeys become darker as 

 well as thicker ; so that clear, transparent honey is not always 

 the best. 



Mr. Otto Hehner, analyst to the British Bee-keepers' Asso- 

 ciation, has reported pretty fuUy on the subject of adulterated 

 honey, in a paper read before the conference of bee-keepers at 

 the International Health Exhibition, in the month of July 

 1883. In that paper he informs us — 



" There are three classes of manufactured honey : first, honey made 

 from ordinary sugar, and essentially consisting of cane-sugar syrup ; 



