OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIGIN OF HONEY, BY M. BOISSIER DE 
62 m 
milies have died for want of subsistence. I provide my- 
self with these panniers, at the merchants’, who buy them — 
to melt the wax. If it be not to the old combs of these 
hives, that I owe the arrival of the foreign bees, the true 
motive is unknown to me, and this phenomenon is to be — 
imputed to some other physical cause, not yet discovered. 
Furthermore, this substance, called by the ancients — 
Erithacé, would not be collected by bees in a state of na- 
ture, and can-only be propolis in a state of perfection, of 
which we know nothing of the process, that is to say, the 
manner in which it is elaborated in the second stomach of 
the insect, or the manner in which it is wrought when it is 
used. 
—= EE 
CHAPTER XVII. 
ee oy 
SAUVAGE, OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF SCIENCES, OF MONT-_ 
PELLIER. i 
To explain the origin of honey, it is sufficient to develop _ 
and explain a vegetable salt, sweet and saccharine, whicl 
is the base or principal material, and appears ina form, ‘ 
either fluid, or viscous, or in little drops. ; 
In fact, this vegetable salt, or mellifluous essence, or hoe 4 
ney dew, is generally the only substance which bees col- 
lect to make their honey. And 2 does not appear that they — 
do any thing more than to collect the parcels from different — 
sources, and put them up in store in their cells. Time © 
alone brings this material to perfection, and gives it the 
requisite consistence.* : 
The part of flowers which botanists call the nectarium, — 
or nectarine cup, is the reservoir best known, whither bees — 
resort to pump out a liquor, which, in its base, is the same — 
as the mellifiuous essence, or honey dew. But after the — 
flowers, or at least a great part of them, have faded, the 
mellifiuous essence, properly so called, furnishes to these in- 
dustrious insects an abundant harvest, which sometimes — 
exceeds their wants and avidity. : 
I have observed two sorts of mellifluous essence, which, . 
q 
* Time alone could not give this matter the requisite consistence, ” 
if it had not been elaborated in the first stomach of the bee, and after- 
ward disgorged in the state of honey.—.uthor. al 
