226 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ March 14, 186*. 
of their hives only. In every case the first swarm should be 
managed in an unimpaired state, so as a harvest of honey and an 
increase of stocks is secured at the same time.—A Lanarkshire 
Bee-keeper. 
(To be continued.) 
WHAT PRODUCES THE FLAVOUR IN HONEY. 
What produces the flavour in honey is still unsolved, and the 
assistance of the chemist is necessary. For the benefit of all whom 
it may concern I will endeavour to throw what light I can upon the 
subject. Honey is gathered from flowers, the buds of flowers, 
from the leaves of trees, from their axils, and those of plants and 
shrubs, from grasses, and fruits when their skin is broken, and 
from the exudations of certain insects of the aphides tribe, which 
•swarm upon many trees and plants. Each flower yields its own 
peculiar flavour, but not always to the same degree. Some flowers 
yield honey in one situation and soil but are barren in another, 
while the aroma is also different, as is also the colour and the 
flavour. For example, honey gathered from flowers on a clayey 
soil is more of an oily nature and more unpleasant to the palate, 
but more plentiful than that gathered from flowers on a deep 
•alluvial soil. Neither yield honey of so fine a flavour nor so 
plentiful as the same sort of flowers grown upon rock or pure 
gravel of channel, such as Heather and wild Thyme do ; when these 
are planted upon deep soil the yield and aroma becomes much less. 
The higher the altitude at which honey is gathered the richer it is, 
Often have I seen bees alight upon a head of Clover and of Thyme, 
filling themselves so heavily from one head they had a difficulty 
in rising, yet some authors tell us that dozens of heads of Clover 
must be visited before a bee can gather a single load. What, then, 
is the cause of the same sort of flowers producing a different 
flavour when grown in different localities ? 
The bee is a wonderful insect, producing changes that man fails 
in, and each variety produces a distinct flavour in its honey from 
■one another. As marvellous as the bee is, no less wonderful are 
the plants and the flowers; for what is the honey before it is dis¬ 
tilled in the flowers ? In the stem may be found a little gum and 
acid, to be changed into honey when it reaches the flower. By 
adding quantities of certain salts we materially alter the flavour of 
honey, so by mechanical compound we make a change, but far 
greater ones are produced by chemical means. What, then, can it 
be but the chemical nature of soils that produces the different 
flavours in honey gathered from similar flowers grown on different 
soils ? 
Of these soils and rocks we have the alluvial, clay deposits, sand 
beds; of different rocks, whinstone, sandstone, granite, &c., then 
"e have limestone inland and near the shore. Then, while we 
have our native earths and rocks, we have also our foreign ones, 
such as the drift plentiful in some quarters of this earth, which to 
appearance, Borgue, and along that seaboard for some distance, has 
had a share. To this last feature, and to the fact that the influence 
of the sea being still visible a long way inland, the lime of the 
^district, in the shape of marl and other shells, contains a large per¬ 
centage of chlorine, I believe has much to do with the production 
of the pleasant flavour of Borgue honey.—N. B. 
ORNAMENTAL DESIGNS IN HONEYCOMB. 
“ Scot ” wishes to know who was the first to make boxes for orna¬ 
mental designs in honeycomb, and asks, “ Was it the Messrs. McNallys ? ” 
1 can answer No to that question. Nearly twenty years before the 
McNallys were heard of as bee-keepers ornamental designs were in 
use both in my own apiary and in many others throughout Ayrshire. 
Mr. J. Craig, Stewarton, carried out the idea rather extensively in 1863-4, 
the year I introduced comb foundation to Ayrshire, and years previous 
to that I had blocks made for the purpose, and produced designs from 
■them, while long before my timeat them others had been at work, but 
these designs were mostly wrought as stars in bellglasses. I trust the 
foregoing answer will be sufficient to establish who were the pioneers 
in the art.— A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
J. R. Pearson & Sons, Chilwell Nurseries, Nottingham .—Catalogue 
of New Zonal Pelargoniums. 
Dobie & Mason, 66, Deansgate, and 22, Oak Street, Manchester.— 
Price List of Agricultural Seeds, 1889. 
Thomas Green & Son (Limited), Smithfield Iron Works, Leeds, and 
Surrey Works, Blackfriars Road, London, S.E.— Illustrated Catalogue 
of Horticultural Implements. 
All correspondence should be directed either to “The 
Editor” or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to Dr. 
Hogg or members of the staff often remain unopened un¬ 
avoidably. We request that no one will write privately 
to any of our correspondents, as doing so subjects them to 
unjustifiable trouble and expense. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions 
relating to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should 
never send more than two or three questions at once. All 
articles intended for insertion should be written on one side of 
the paper only. We cannot reply to questions through the 
post, and we do not undertake to return rejected communica¬ 
tions. 
laudatory Notices ((?../.).—We shall certainly not publish what 
you have sent, and we are surprised you should expect any editor to 
do so. We cannot acknowledge the receipt of communications by 
letter, nor, as you may see by the notice above, do we undertake to 
return rejected communications. As yours, however, does not happen 
to have been destroyed you can have it by sending a sufficiently 
stamped directed envelope for its return. No doubt, as you say, the 
firm is of “ good standing, though they do not go in for advertising.” 
We know firms that advertise doing ten times or fifty times the 
business; but apart from that, since you do not see why we reject 
the article over which you have taken so much.trouble for what you 
describe as our “ valuable Journal,” we will endeavour to make you 
understand it by an illustration. Sit down and write six foolscap pages 
of matter, praising as highly as you can everything you see in this 
“ valuable Journal,” ask the firm whose goods you extol to insert it in 
their catalogue, and let us know their reply. We only suggest this for 
your own enlightenment, and not because we desire any such thing. 
All persons who publish catalogues know, as do all managers of public 
journals, that the space at their disposal comes in the same category 
that land does to a landlord, and we suspect you do not know of many 
landlords who allow other persons to crop their land, and derive what 
profit they can from it without paying rent. We had not long ago to 
refuse to publish a similar “article” to yours of the goods of tradesmen 
who do advertise, but it was such flagrant puffery from end to end 
that it could only suggest to readers, Why this fulsome adulation ? and 
we are positive we should not have been thanked for publishing such a 
production. If anyone were to write such an article as yours, and 
intimate to the editor of any respectable journal that if the “ notice” 
does not appear something will happen, the MS. would go at once into the 
waste paper basket. We have always been ready to direct attention to 
new or specially meritorious products, and to place before our readers 
useful matter obtained by appointed representatives ; but it is another 
thing entirely to be expected to publish lengthy laudatory notices, and 
nothing else, from anyone who chooses to send them, and your letter 
cannot possibly have any influence as affecting our course of procelure 
in this matter. 
Book (./. Cl). —The new edition of “ Orchids ; Their Structure, 
History, and Culture,” is now ready, and can be had from the publisher 
at this office, price Is., post free Is. 3d. 
Palms ('R. A. 2?.).—Your question being distinctly of a business 
nature we can only suggest, if you cannot effect your object locally, the 
trial of an advertisement. 
"White Cineraria (IF. SI). —The blooms sent are very good, and 
it is certainly one of the best white varieties we have seen. By all 
means preserve it and increase your stock. 
Sawdust Ziltter from Stables QF. J.). —We have used sawdust 
after it has been employed as bedding for horses, consequently saturated 
more or less with urine, and containing the droppings, and have not 
observed any deleterious effects, our only regret being that we were 
able to procure so little. We have not used it as a mulching for fruit 
trees or Roses, but have employed it rather extensively for Rhododen- 
