365 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1899. 
in honey is subject to certain fluctuations, within certain small limits, and that 
usually the percentage of water in genuine honey varies between 18 and 20 
per cent. There have been examples in which the water has far exceeded that 
ainount, however, and I believe there are genuine honeys with as much as 25 
per cent. of water. So that I presume that what Mr. Holtermann is speaking 
of, and what he wants legislation for, is to prevent the sale of honey when the 
percentage of water it contains exceeds, say, the latter quantity, 25 per cent. I 
should judge 25 per cent. as an outside limit, because 1 know in England that 
20 per cent. is looked upon as a good average percentage of water in honey. 
You would be quite safe, I should say, in putting it at 25 per cent., and consider 
honey containing more than that as adulterated. The law you refer to is an adul- 
teration law. When the law comes to treat of the matter it will call additional 
water, whether left in or added, an adulteration ; it coull not speak of it by 
any other term.” 
Another speaker, Mr. J. B. Hall, said that no test was required ; if a 
honey were obtained which would weigh 12 1b. to the wine gallon, no analysis 
was necessary. In taking extracted honey the quantity could be doubled if 
taken unripe. This much was certain: If the comb honey of two hives of bees 
alongside each other were taken, gathering from the same field, one will be a 
beautiful waxy honey and and the other will be very thin; if you put a pin 
into the cappings of the combit will empty every cell. That was something he 
could not account for, unless it were the race or stock of bees that did the 
trick. 
The President said that samples of honey had been supplied to the Revenue 
Department, and pronounced to be genuine honey with such percentages as the 
following :—23'50, 25, 21°40, 26°20, 22°80, 26:90, 21:30, 24°90, 24°21, 25:30, 
27°40, not clear; sediment observed, adulterated with starch glucose. 
Every beekeeper, it was said, could test his own honey, and he could 
ascertain, to his own satisfaction, the amount of water it contained. 
If a sample of honey were taken that would test 143 lb. per gallon, 
imperial measure, and add 28 Jb. ot water to it, there will still be a mixture 
that will weigh 13% Ib. per gallon. 
There was really no such a thing as houey. This might be news to 
beekeepers; but there was really no actual element by the name of honey, 
True; but there is no element of the name of pork or butter; but we 
haye a compound made of different things, and that varies in different honeys 
in proportion. ‘The proportion of these things mixed together varies in honey, 
not only from year to year, but from locality to locality; these specific 
gravities all vary; it is greater in some, and less in others. Water has one 
specific gravity, glucose has another, grape sugar has another, so has cane 
sugar, and these are all in honey. 
To this, Mr. Shutt replied— “abs 
“The fact that the specific gravity test gives the same result as to the 
percentage of water needs some qualification. If the honey has had no sugar, 
glucose, or syrup added to it, then the specific gravity test will give you the 
percentage of water, or the percentage of honey sugar in it; that is, supposing 
the only adulteration suspected is that of water; but you can easily understand 
that if such materials as I have mentioned had been added to honey to 
adulterate it, then the specific gravity would not necessarily give you the 
percentage of water in the honey. If you are not looking for the percentage 
of water only, and you can assume that the rest of the honey is genuine as 
prepared by the bees, then the specific gravity test will give you approximately 
the data that you wish, the same data that you would obtain by analysing the 
honey and ascertaining the percentage of water. There were one or two 
remarks made by Mr. Darling that J should like to correct, for | must not go 
on these minutes as being misunderstood. When I was spoken to with regard 
to this question I do not speak as an authority, and I mentioned the fact that 
I was not quoting from memory, and that I had not come prepared to speak 
authoritatively upon the subject. Mr. Darling misunderstands me when he 
a 
