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 willseparate, 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. If 
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 fully 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 ; 
