Aids to Microscopic Inquiry. 377 



The sugars mentioned vary in sweetness. Cane sugar is the 

 sweetest. Fruit sugar, which is abundant in treacle, comes 

 next. Starch sugar or grape sugar is so inferior in this pro- 

 perty that, according to Professor Miller, two and a half pounds 

 of it only produces as much sweetening as one pound of cane 

 sugar. Milk sugar comes lowest of all. It should be stated, 

 in reference to fermentation, that, when cane sugar is acted 

 upon by yeast, it is converted first into fruit sugar and then 

 into carbonic acid and alcohol.* 



Honey contains a great deal of the uncrystallizable fruit 

 sugar, and, when quite fresh, is, as is well known, a transparent 

 liquid. When removed from the comb, part of the sugar soon 

 passes into the form of grape or starch sugar, and crystallizes in 

 patterns more or less like the four or six sided prisms of cane 

 sugar. 



If, therefore, a little drop of honey, that has been some 

 time out of the comb, is placed upon a slide covered with thin 

 glass, and viewed with an inch or two-thirds objective, it will 

 be seen to contain a great quantity of more or less perfect 

 sugar crystals, which become splendid objects with polarized 

 light and the use of the selenite stage. 



In addition to the sugar crystals, grains of pollen from the 

 plants which the bees have visited will be discerned, and it is 

 interesting for those who live in the country to collect pollen 

 grains for themselves, and compare them with those introduced 

 into the honey by the bees. 



Honey, adulterated with potato starch, will be detected 

 by the form of the starch grains, and by the cross they give 

 with polarized light. When common sugar is added to restore 

 the sweetness of adulterated honey, Dr. Hassall tells us 

 it may be detected by the thicker and clumsier crystals which 

 it forms. 



When bees have access to odoriferous flowers, their honey 

 acquires a special characteristic, which is often exceed- 

 ingly pleasant. They sometimes visit poisonous plants, and 

 then their honey has deleterious properties, like that which 

 affected Xenophon's soldiers in one portion of their famous 

 march. This sort of honey, partially made from the Azalea 

 pontica, possesses in our times the same undesirable qualities. 



* Vide Miller's Chemistry. 



