HONEY (Chin., me; Sansk., madhit, mead, honey, cf. A. S., medo, medu, mead ; Greek, /teAi, in which 6 or 8 is changed into A; Lafc., mel; Fr., miel; A. S., humg; Germ., Honig)[1] a sweet viscid liquid, obtained by bees chiefly from the nectaries of flowers, i.e., those parts of flowers specially constructed for the elaboration of honey (see Botany, vol. iv. p. 134), and after transportation to the hive in the proventriculus or crop of the insects, discharged by them into the cells prepared for its reception. Whether the nectar under goes any alteration within the crop of the bee is a point on which authors have differed. Some wasps, e.g., Myrapetra scutellaris[2] and the genus Nectarina, collect honey. A honey-like fluid, which consists of a nearly pure solution of uncrystallizable sugar having the formula C H U O 7 after drying in vacuo, and which is used by the Mexicans in the preparation of a beverage, is yielded by certain inactive individuals of Myrmecocystus mexicanus, Wesmael, the honey-ants or pouched ants (hormigas mieleras or mochi- leras) of Mexico.[3] The abdomen in these insects, owing to the distensibility of the membrane connecting its segments, becomes converted into a globular thin-walled sac by the accumulation within it of the nectar supplied to them by their working comrades (Wesmael, Bull, de I Acad. Roy. de Brux., v. 766, 1838). By the Rev. H. C. M Cook, who discovered the insect in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado, the honey-bearers were found hanging by their feet, in groups of about thirty, to the roofs of special chambers in their underground nests, their Urge globular abdomens causing them to resemble " bunches of small Delaware grapes" (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., 1879, p. 197). A bladder-like formation on the metathorax of another ant, Crematogaster inflatns (F. Smith, Cat. of Hymenoptera, pt. vi, pp. 136 and 200, pi. ix. fig. 1), which has a small circular orifice at each posterior lateral angle, appears to possess a function similar to that of the abdomen in the honey-ant.
It is a popular saying that where is the best honey there also is the best wool ; and a pastoral district, since it affords a greater profusion of flowers, is superior for the production of honey to one under tillage.[4] Dry warm weather is that most favourable to the secretion of nectar by flowers. This they protact from rain by various internal structures, such as papillae, cushions of hairs, and spurs, or by virtue of their position (in the raspberry, drooping), or the arrangement of their constituent parts. Dr A. W. Bennett (Ifoiv Flowers are Fertilized, p. 31, 1873) has remarked that the perfume of flowers is generally derived from their nectar ; the blossoms of some plants, however, as ivy and holly, though almost scentless,are highlynectariferous. The exudation of a honey- like or saccharine fluid, as has frequently been attested, is not a function exclusively of the flowers in all plants. A sweet material, the manna of pharmacy, e.g., is produced by the leaves and stems of a species of ash, Fraxinns Ornus ; and honey-secreting glands are to be mst with on the leaves, petioles, phyllodes, stipules (as in Vicia sativa), or bractese (as in the Marcgraviacea?) of a considerable number of dif ferent vegetable forms. The origin of the honey-yielding properties manifested specially by flowers among the several parts of plants has been carefully considered by Darwin, who regards the saccharine matter in nectar as a waste product of chemical changes in the sap, which, when it happened to be excreted within the envelopes of flowers, was utilized for the important object of cross-fertilization, and sub sequently was much increased in quantity, and stored in various ways (see Cross and Self Fertilization of Plants, p, 402 sq., 1876). It has been noted with respect to the nectar of the fuchsia that it is most abundant when the anthers are about to dehisce, and absent in the unexpanded flower.
Pettigrew is of opinion that few bees go more than two miles from home in search of honey. The number of blossoms visited in order to meet the requirements of a single hive of bees must be very great ; for it has been found by A. S. Wilson ("On the Nectar of Flowers," Brit. Assoc. Itep., 1878, p. 567) that 125 heads of common red clover, which is a plant comparatively abundant in nectar, yield but one gramme (15 432 grains) of sugar ; and as each head contains about GO ilorets, 7,500,000 distinct flower-tubes must on this estimate be exhausted for each kilogramme (2 204 ft) of sugar collected. Among the richer sources of honey are reckoned the apple, asparagus, asters, barberry, basswood (Tilia, americana), and the European lime or linden ( T. curopcea), beans, bonesets (Eupatorium), borage, broom, buckwheat, catnip, or catmint (Atycta Oataria), cherry, cleome, clover, cotton, crocus, currant, dandelion, eucalyptus, figwort (Scrophularia), furze, golden-rod (Solidago), gooseberry, hawthorn, heather, hepatica, horehound, hyacinth, lucerne, maple, mignonette, mint, motherwort (Leonurus], mustard, onion, peach, pear, poplar, quince, rape, raspberry, sage, silver maple, snapdragon, sour-wood (Oxydoidron arboreum, D. 0.), strawberry, sycamore, teasel, thyme, tulip-tree (more especially rich in pollen), turnip, violet, and willows, and the " honey-dew " of the leaves of the whitethorn (Bonner), oak, linden, beech, and some other trees.
Honey contains dextroglucose and tevoglucose (the former practically insoluble, the latter soluble in i pt. of cold strong alcohol), cane-sugar (according to some), mucilage, water, wax, essential oil, colouring bodies, a minute quantity of mineral matter, and pollen. By a species of fermenta tion, the cane-sugar is said to be gradually transformed into inverted sugar (laBvoglucose with dextroglucose). The pollen, as a source of nitrogen, is of importance to the bees feeding on the honey. It may be obtained for examination as a sediment from a mixture of honey and water. Other substances which have been discovered in honey are mannite (Guibourt), a free acid which precipitates the salts of silver and of lead, and is soluble in water and alcohol (Calloux), and an uncrystallizable sugar, nearly related to inverted sugar (Soubeiran, Compt. Rend., xxviii. 774-75, 1849). Brittany honey contains couvain, a ferment which deter mines its active decomposition (Wurtz, Diet, de Chem., ii. 430). In the honey of Polylia apicipennis, a wasp of tropical America, cane-sugar occurs in crystals of large size (Karsten, Pogy. Ann., C. 550). Dr J. Campbell Brown ("On the Composition of Honey," Analyst, iii. 267, 1878) is doubtful as to the presence of cane-sugar in any one of nine samples, from various sources, examined by him. The following average percentage numbers are afforded by his analyses : laevulose, 36 45 ; dextrose, 36 - 57 ; mineral matter, 15 ; water expelled at 100 C., 18 5, and at a much higher temperature, with loss, 7 81 : the wax, pollen, and insoluble matter vary from a trace to 2 1 per cent. The specific gravity of honey is about 1-41. The rotation of a polarized ray by a solution of 16 26 grammes of crude honey in 100 c.c. of water is generally from 3 2 to 5 at 60 F. ; in the case of Greek honey it is nearly 5 "5. Almost all pure honey, when exposed for some time to light and cold, becomes more or less granular in consis tency. Any liquid portion can be readily separated by straining through linen. Honey sold out of the comb is commonly clarified by heating and skimming ; but accord ing to Bonner it is always best in its natural state. The mel depuratum of British pharmacy is prepared by heating honey in a water-bath, and straining through flannel pre viously moistened with warm water.
- ↑ The term honey in its various forms is peculiar to the Teutonic group of languages, and in the Gothic New Testament is wanting, the Greek word being there translated melith.
- ↑ See A. White, in Ann. and May. Nat. Hist., vii. 315, pi. 4.
- ↑ Wetherill (Chem. Gaz., xi. 71, 1853) calculates that the average weight of the honey is 8 2 times that of the body of the ant, or 3942 grammes.
- ↑ Compare Tsa. vii. 15, 22, where curdled milk (A.V., "butter") and honey as exclusive articles of diet are indicative of foreign invasion, which turns rich agricultural districts into pasture lands or uncultivated wastes.
