216 APIS MELLIFICA. 



and an uncrystallizable portion, mucilage, wax, an acid, and some- 

 times a little essential oil. It is soluble in water, and partially in 

 alcohol ; and, like sugar, when diluted with water, and subjected 

 to a proper temperature, passes into the acetous and vinous fer- 

 mentation, affording what is called mead and metheglin. Nitric 

 acid unites with honey, and converts it into oxalic acid. 



The tongue is the principal organ in collecting the honey ; when 

 employed, it is extended, and the insect apparently licks the honey 

 and passes it down on its upper surface, which is at its base, con- 

 cealed by the mandibles. It is conveyed by this orifice through 

 the oesophagus into the first stomach, usually called the honey-bag, 

 which is swelled when full of it to a considerable size. All the 

 honey we observe in the combs is a vegetable product, being prin- 

 cipally collected by the bees from the nectaries of flowers, in which 

 it is abundantly secreted. After being swallowed by the bees, it 

 is disgorged into their cells ; but it probably undergoes some 

 change in that organ before it is excreted, and deposited in the 

 comb. How the wax is secreted, or what vessels are appropriated 

 to that purpose, is not ascertained. There is reason to believe 

 that it transudes through two taper-form whitish pockets of a 

 membranaceous texture occupying the base of the rings connecting 

 the body in the form of wax. 



The color and flavor of honey, and its effects on the human 

 constitution varies according to the nature of the flowers from 

 which it is collected. That of Narbonne, in France, where rose- 

 mary abounds, is said to have a very manifest flavour of that plant, 

 and to be imitable by adding to other honey an infusion of rose- 

 mary flowers. Many of the ancient writers, particularly Xenophon, 

 have mentioned instances of deleterious effects being produced by 

 honey, supposed to have been collected by bees from poisonous 

 plants. The Greek soldiers, in their celebrated retreat after the 

 death of the younger Cyrus, found a kind of honey near Trebisond, 

 on the shores of the Euxine or Black Sea, which rendered those 

 who ate of it like mad-men or persons inebriated ; and numbers 

 lay upon the ground as if there had been a defeat. The same fact 

 is recorded by Diodorus Siculus. Pliny, who mentions this honey, 

 calls it Mamomenon, and observes that it is said to be collected from 



