470 
HONEY AND ITS COLORS 
endless variety of flavors, making it prac¬ 
ticable to suit the most exacting connois¬ 
seur. Color is a fair guide, but not always 
so, for the famous heather honey of Europe 
is quite dark, and yet no honey stands 
higher in popular esteem on that continent. 
The best honeys of this country are usu¬ 
ally spoken of as “water-white,” and, tho 
this is not quite correct, still it is near 
enough for all practical purposes without 
coining a new word. 
Clover honey may be taken as the typi¬ 
cal white honey by which others may be 
conveniently judged. For the purpose of 
comparison some may be a little lighter, 
and others a little darker shade; but these 
nice distinctions are visible only to experts 
Taken by this standard, in the North 
there are all the clovers—white, alfalfa,* 
crimson, mammoth, alsike, sweet—and the 
European, sainfoin; basswood, raspbenw 
(wild), willow-herb (or fireweed), milk¬ 
weed, Canada thistle, apple, cucumber 
(pickle), and Rocky Mountain bee plant. 
In the South white honey is obtained from 
the following: Gallberry (holly), sour- 
wood, tupelo, mangrove, cotton, palmetto, 
bean, huajilla, catsclaw, huisache, mesquite, 
California sage, orange, and some others 
of less importance. In the American trop¬ 
ics the chief white honey is from logwood 
or campeche; on all tropical seashores, from 
campanilla (Cuba), and the mangrove. 
Amber-colored honey comes from many 
sources. Among them, only the more fa¬ 
miliar ones can be noted in a popular book 
of this kind; namely, goldenrod, wild sun¬ 
flower, heartsease, Spanish needles, sumac, 
poplar, gum, eucalyptus, magnolia, mari¬ 
gold, horsemint, horehound, carpet-grass, 
and the hog plum (hobo), rose-apple, and 
royal palm of the West Indies. 
Of dark honeys there are two great ex¬ 
amples—the buckwheat of the United 
States and Europe, and heather, which is 
confined to Europe alone. The latter, tho 
dark, is a rich, strong-flavored, thick hon¬ 
ey, so dense that the extractor is not used 
to take it from the combs. That produced 
in Scotland commands a very high price, 
while that of England is cheaper, being 
gathered from another species of heather. 
In North Germany the heath or heather 
* This is a light amber in southern California 
and Arizona. 
honey commands a good figure. It is large¬ 
ly produced by migratory beekeepers, their 
bees existing on white clover during sum¬ 
mer, and in the fall being moved to the 
heaths. 
Buckwheat honey is not nearly so good 
as clover, either in flavor, density, or color; 
but it is so liberally produced in buckwheat 
localities that it is a paying crop to the 
beekeeper. It blooms late, hence the bees 
can be prepared in ample time to profit 
by its bloom. This feature alone makes it 
very valuable to the beekeeper who is for¬ 
tunate enough to live in a buckwheat- 
growing section. In those parts of this 
country where buckwheat is grown largely, 
consumers are willing to pay as much, or 
almost as much, as they will for fine white 
honey. Indeed, many prize it more highly. 
In France there is a great demand for 
buckwheat honey from bakers of a kind of 
bread which has been made for centuries. 
No other sort of honey is desired by these 
bakers, who derive nearly all their supply 
from Brittany, where buckwheat is com¬ 
monly sown. Attempts have been made to 
get the bakers to use other dark honeys, 
but without success. 
In Europe there are some prominent 
honeys which are almost or quite unknown 
in this country. Heather has been men¬ 
tioned. Sainfoin is another which is quite 
common, being almost the same as our 
alfalfa honey. Narbonne honey belongs 
to this class. In southern Europe romarin 
(rosemary) is very highly spoken of; and 
in Greece there is the classically famous 
honey of Mount Hymettus, from wild 
thyme. In Australia the honey of eucalyp¬ 
tus is highly appreciated, but attempts to 
sell it in England have always ended in 
failure, altho it ought to be useful for per¬ 
sons suffering from coughs and colds. In¬ 
stead of the eucalyptus flavor proving to 
be an attraction it proved to be a draw¬ 
back. In California, eucalyptus has a lim¬ 
ited demand. 
HONEY AS A FOOD.— During the cen¬ 
turies previous to the advent of cane and 
beet sugar, honey was the only concentrated 
sweet in the world’s dietary. In those 
times honey was not produced in abund¬ 
ance as now, and people could not freely 
indulge their desire for sweet. Cheap 
