HONEY. 
285 
CHAPTER XVI. 
HONEY. 
That hone y is a vegetable product, was known to the 
ancient Jews, one of whose Rabbins asks: “ Since we may 
not eat bees, which are unclean, why are we allowed to 
eat honey?” and replies: “Because bees do not make 
honey, but only gather it from plants and flowers.” 
Bees often obtain a saccharine substance from the 
honey-dews, which are found on the foliage of many 
trees, and are sometimes merely an exudation from their 
leaves, though oftener a discharge from the bodies of 
small aphides or “ plant-lice.”* 
Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their interesting work on 
Entomology, have given a description of the honey-dew 
furnished by the aphides: 
“ The loves of the ants and the aphides have long been celo- 
biated; you will always find the former very busy on those trees 
and plants on which the latter abound; and, if you examine 
somewhat more closely, you will discover that the object of the 
ants, in thus attending upon the aphides, is to obtain the saccha¬ 
rine fluid secreted by them, which may well be denominated their 
milk. This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey in sweet¬ 
ness, issues in limpid drops from the abdomen of these insects, not 
only by the ordinary passage, but also by two setiform tubes, 
placed one on each side, just above it. Their sucker being inserted 
in the tender bark, is. without intermission, employed in absorb- 
• The Abbe SoUxitr de Samagm, In “1672, described very fully and accurately 
these two species of honey-dew. The first kind, ho says, has the saino origin with 
tile manna on the ash and maple trees of Calabria and Briancon, where it flows 
plentifully from their leaves and trunks, and thickens in the form in which it is 
usually seen. 1 I have received specimens of a honey-dew from California, which is 
sain to fall from the oak trees in stalactites of considerable size. 
