144 
BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
sugar, especially when kept for a few weeks, viz. glucose (C 12 H. :4 0 1; ,) or grape- 
sugar. 
Glucose is a crystalline substance, possessing about one-fourth the sweetening 
power of sucrose. It crystallizes in small tufts of thin prisms, pointed at both 
ends. The crystals, when formed for the microscope, always have pointed ends, 
instead of the square ones before mentioned, and owe this peculiarity simply to 
position also. This property is of great assistance to the micro-chemist when 
examining saccharine substances. 
We will now pass on to the formation of honey as found in a newly-made comb. 
On examining the disk of many flowers, a number of glandular or scale-like 
bodies may be seen, abounding in a sweet liquid when the flower is at its height 
of beauty. Many plants, as the Ranunculus and Fritillaria , have a small glan¬ 
dular cavity at the base of the petals, filled with the same fluid, but not so plen¬ 
tifully as those on the disk. This fluid is commonly termed nectar, and there¬ 
fore, in the older botanical works, the part of the flower supplying it was termed 
the nectary. This sweet fluid is a true sugar-syrup, eliminated from the amy¬ 
laceous sap of the plant, and its office is probably to afford nourishment to 
the stamens and pistil. The so-called nectary serves the purpose of a reservoir 
for the superabundant fluid, and excites the instinct of the bees. 
These singular insects choose many plants preferably to others, and, what is 
stranger still, a bee only attacks the same kind of flower in a garden at each 
visit, although surrounded by hundreds of others. This may be easily proved 
by examining a bee on its return to the hive, when the pollen will be seen to be 
all of one kind. The plants that have been noted as being the greatest fa¬ 
vourites are— 
Borago officinalis. 
Brassica campestris. 
Colchicum autumnale. 
Erica cinerea. 
E. tetralix. 
Cheiranthus Cheiri. 
Althaea rosea. 
Reseda lutea. 
Ribes Grossularia. 
Rosmarinus officinalis. 
Tilia europaea. 
Corylus Avellana. 
Ribes nigrum. 
Ulex europaeus. 
Lonicera Periclymenum. 
besides innumerable others. 
The local flora has the greatest possible influence on the taste, colour, and 
other qualities of the honey of the neighbourhood. For instance, that from the 
sandy districts of Worcestershire and Salisbury Plain has a rich golden colour, 
while that from Wales and the suburbs of Bristol has a dark, dirty.brown 
colour and coarse taste. 
On examining the sap of many immature flowers, it was found to give a dis¬ 
tinctly bluish colour with iodine, showing the presence of starch. After the 
lapse of twenty-four hours, the sap was sweetish, and iodine now only gave a 
dirty greenish-brown colour. The highest degree of sweetness was just when 
the flower fully expanded. 
The next step was to find out what the sweet matter was. The part of the 
petal or disk, according to the flower, was sliced, macerated for a short time in 
a little cold distilled water. The liquid was then heated with lime and carbonic 
acid, filtered, and evaporated in vacuo over sulphuric acid, on a glass slip. 
Some of these results I have on the table before you. The crystals are from 
Echium vulgare. 
Thymus Serpyllum. 
Rubus Idaeus. 
R. ceesius. 
Rosa canina. 
R. rubiginosa. 
R. arvensis. 
Sarothamnus scoparius. 
Melilotus officinalis. 
Crataegus Oxyacantha. 
Salix (various). 
Polygonum. 
Menyanthes trifoliata. 
Trifolium repens. 
T. pratense. 
