BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**HIVE-STARDS.** See APAYY.
**HOARHOUND** (_Merriculum vulpire_ ). This is quite an important honey-plant in Texas. It begins yielding some time in February, and continues to furnish nectar until quite late in the summer, or until hot dry weather sets in. The honey is of a golden color, and good body, but not a nice table honey. It has been said that it is not fit to eat, being very bitter; but Louis H. Scholl, of Texas, declares this is hardly the case in his locality; that the honey has a very sweet taste, liked by some but nauseating to others. It is said to have pronounced medicinal qualities, and we believe is described in the pharmacopoia as a medicine.
**HOLLY.** See GALLERY.
**HOY-LAND BEES.** See Italians.
**HONERY.** Every reader of a work of this kind is supposed to know, of course, what honey is; and yet there may be a good many who have only a superficial idea of it, and perhaps a very brief statement should be made.
According to the Century Dictionary, " Honey is a sweet viscid fluid collected from the nectaries of flowers, and elaborated for food by several kinds of insects, esi eecially by the honey-bee _(Apis mellifera)_." An accepted German definition is, " Honey is the nectar obtained from flowers by woiker bees, which, after modificatic n in the honey-stomach of the latter, is stored in t.e. cells of the comb for the nourishment of the young brood." In this country the food standards consider " honey as t.e. nectar and saccharine exudations of plants gathered, modified, and stored in the comb by honey-bees _(Apis mellifera and Alps dorsata)_." In the latter definition there is included, besides the nectar of flowers, also saccharine exudation of plants. This comes about in that many plants contain sugar in their saps, and, when an exudation of sap takes place, and the water in the sap is evaporated, a saccharine residue remains, which is gathered by the bees. Also, many trees evade a sweet sap when stung by some insect, and this is also gathered by the lees (see IIoney-dew).
Ioney in itself is approximately a pure saccharine substance, naturally flavored, and containing aromans imparted to it by the flower and the bee. Its chemical composition shows it to contain, for the greater part, two sugars, dextrose and levulsc, in about equal quantities, also generally (but not always) sucrose. The other substances, in order of their quantity, are dextrins, acids, ash, and a number of substances whose nature and composition have not been thoroughly worked out. An average analysis of American honey given by Brown in Bulletin 11u, Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculturale, Showers--
Moisture..
For the further consideration of this subject see Candford Honey, Extracted Honey, Honey-Dew, Honey as Food, and Nectar.
**Honey, ADULTERATION OF.** Until the passage of the national pure-food hill by Congress, June 80, 106, liquid or extracted honey was quite often adulterated, it being safe to buy only comb honey; but with the passage of the bill, and the careful work of the Department of Agriculture inspectors, besides the work of the individual state food commissions, this has been brought to a minimum. The label on the bottle must tell the composition of the contents. Honey can bear that label only when it is pure; but if mixed with other substances these must appear on the label in as large type as the honey.
The most common forms of adulteration which are practiced at present in the sophistication of honey are the addition of commercial glucose, cane sugar, and invert sugar. The adulteration of honey by dilution with water is less commonly practiced; such addition is easily recognized by the increased fluidity of the honey, and, there is, besides, the increased danger that the product will spoil through fermentation.
Since the food standard requires the product to contain less than 25 per cent water, the bee-keeper can determine the water content of his product by accurately weighing a gallon of his product. The net weight should be over 112 pounds, or, by means of a Beaume hydrometer ranging from 0 to 50 degrees, which can be obtained from any chemical house, and a glass cylinder 12 inches high and 14 inches in diameter, he can ascertain the weight of his product. By filling the cylinder with the honey, allowing the air-bubbles to come to the top, and cooling to 70\({}^{\circ}\) Fahr., the hydrometer is allowed to float in the liquid. It should not at the mark of 43\({}^{\circ}\) for a product of less than 25 per cent water.
Commercial glucose is not used so much now as formerly. Its presence is easily detected by the chemist. For a description of this product see Glucose.
The addition of cane-sugar syrup is also easily detected by the experienced chemist. The standards allow s per cent sucrose to be present, which is far in excess of what is ordinarily found in pure honey; and, while this may seem an arbitrary amount, it is certainly to the honey-producer's advantage to have a standard provided. Any excess of 8 per cent would surely be called an adulteration.
The adulteration of honey with invert sugar syrup is being practiced to some extent in this country, though not so widely at present as in certain parts of Europe. This syrup has in many respects the same composition as pure honey; it is deficient, however, in ash, aluminoids, and other constituents which occur in honey in small amounts. It is recognized by the expert chemist on account of some of its ash constituents and other chemical constituents, while not with the ease that the presence of glucose is told, but with sufficient accuracy to determine its presence in mixture.
**Honey AND ITS COLORS**. The various kinds of honey differ very much in color, flavor, and density. One variety may be practically colorless, while another produced in the same locality, under the same conditions, by the same bees, but from different flowers, may be a dark brown. One kind may contain less than one-sixth of water, while another may contain a third. The proportions of dextrose, levulose, and sucrose vary considerably; but as the extent of the variation is known to chemists they are compelled to take this into account and analyze it differently from the way they would other foods.
Ordinarily honey is judged by its color, flavor, and density. There is an almost endless variety of flavors, making it practicable to suit the most exacting connoisseur. Colors 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 usually spoken of as " water-white;" and, though this is not quite correct, still it is near enough for all practical purposes without cloning a new word.
Clover honey may be taken as the typical 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 points of distinction are visible only to an expert.
Taken by this standard, in the North we have all the clovers--white, alfalfa, crimson, mammoth, alsike, sweet--and the European sanifoin, basswood, raspberry (wild), willow-herb (or firewed), Canada thistle, apple, cucumber (pickle), and Rocky Mountain bee-plant. In the South we have white honey from the following: Gallberry (holly), sonwood, tupelo, mangrove, cotton, palmetto, guajilla, catelaw, busische, mes
into heat and work. It differs from sugar in two important participants. First, it does not require to be "'inverted,' or converted into natural glucose (it is that already), a process which frequently leads to diabetes (kidney trouble); and, again, it possesses an aroma and flavor which granulated sugar does not. It is a purely natural production, requiring neither cooking nor preparation.
There is an almost infinite variety of flavors in honey, so that the peculiar palate of every one can be suited. In dealing with childrenand delicate people this is important. In countries where the consumption of sugar is large, as in the United States, Canada, and the British Islands, six kidneydisease(diabetes) generally spoken of as a "'kidney trouble," is quite common. This is due to the fact that the system of those afflicted is so constituted that they are unable to convert ordinary sugar into glucose. There is always a certain number of such people in every community. _Diabetes_, as the doctors term it, bears considerable resemblance to Bright's disease of the kidneys, which is, however, due to excess of albumen\(-\)not sugar.
Children generally crave something sweet, a perfectly healthy and natural longing which ought to be satisfied in some way. This is generally done by giving confectionery and sweetemats, which frequently are rather indigestible. Honey can be made to take their place with most children if allowed in the regular dietary. In this way the craving for sweets is effectively met. In France and other parts of Europe the doctors recommend honey and cream, or honey and butter, for the treatment of consumputtively inclined children. They say this combination is better than cod-iver-oil emulsion, for the reason it is much more palatable and satisfactory to the patient's stomach.
Honey is very effectively used in summer drinks, and should take precedence of sugar in this respect, more particularly where workmen are employed in hot fatiguing work such as in glass and iron factories.
Immense quantities of honey are used by hakers, both in America and Europe. In this country alone the National Biscuit 'o, uses an amount which seems staggering to a man unacquanitted with the industry. This concern recently purchased in one lot 70 earlands of good honey, and is always in the market for honey in big lots. There are no means of knowing just how much honey the baking industry uses in this country; but it is very large indeed. The best bakers have discovered that honey is far superior to sugar as a sweetening agent. The latter causes the cakes and bread made with it to dry up and become unpalatable in a few days; whereas honey, on the other hand, causes them to remain sweet and moist for a long period. Cases are reported of honey-jumbles remaining moist for twelve years; and in France nobody thinks it is any thing very wonderful to keep honey-bread a year or eighteen months, and yet remain perfectly good and satisfactory. If hard, it is simply put into a damp place for a few days, when it returns to its original condition.
It is perfectly clear that, where bread and cakes are made in factories, they must have some "'keeping " qualities; and by experience the managers have found honey the only acceptable agent for this purpose. At Dijon, in France, from time immemorial a kind of honey-bread (_pain d'epiee_, or _Leb Kuchen_, as the Germans call it) has been made and has a wide fame. It is also made in other parts of Europe, but that place seems to excel in its production. The bakers there are fastlions, and can not be induced to use any but buckwheat honey. They say they can not risk their reputation by using any other. The honey is obtained in Brittany; and when it is used up the bakers simply stop baking rather than use a substitute.
Honey-bread is now made and sold in New York, and what we have used of it here in Medina proved to be very fine eating indeed. The general opinion of it was, it would be very acceptable to dyspetics or persons of impaired digestion, being very open and porous, and easily masticated.
Ioney-cakes and jumbles have attained a very large consumption of late years, showing that consumers appreciate a really nice and satisfactory article, no matter if it seems somewhat higher pried than similar foods.
A considerable amount of honey has been used in confectionery, and this demand is increasing; in this connection beeswax is also used to some extent. The beeswax is used in about the same proportions that we find it in a piece of comb honey, and some actually buy comb honey for making confectionery. Honey-candies coated with chocolate are much consumed in Europe.
Honey is largely used as medicine and as a vehicle for carrying nausous doses. It is soothing in action that it is used effectively for many purposes in the sickroom. In continental Europe the doctors often recommend and use honey. For some unexplained reason our medical men are not
winants, i events' worth each of enabled lemon and orange peek, 5 cents' worth citron (the last three cut line), 2 large tablespoonfuls sold, 2 teaspoonfuls crimnmon, 2 teaspoonfuls ground cloves. Put the milk, sugar, and honey on the stove, to boill 15 minutes! skin of the seun, and take from the stove, Put in the nuts, spices, and enabled fruit. Stir in as much flour as can be done with a spoon. Set away to cool, then mix in the sok don't make the dough too stiff. Cover up and let stand over night, then work in door enough to make a stiff dough. Make when you get ready. It is well to let it stand in few days, as it will not stick so budly. Hull out a little thicker than a common cooks, cut in any shape you like.
_Mrs. E. Smith._
Honey Drop-cakes,-1 cup honey, 3 cup sugar 3% cup butter or lari, 3 cup sour milk, 1 egg, 3 tablespoonful soda, 4 cups sifted flour.
Honey Short-cake,-3 cups flour,2 teaspoonfuls laking-powder, I teaspoonful salt, 3% cup shortening, 15 cups sweet milk. Roll quickly, and bake in a lot oven. When done, split the cake and spread the lower half things with butter, and the upper half with 5% pound of the best-flavored honey. Candidied honey is preferred. If too hard to spread well it should be slightly warmed or creenned with a knife.) Let it stand a few minutes, and the honey will melt gradually and the flavor will permeate all through the cake. To be eaten with milk.
Honey Tea-cake,-1 cup honey, 3 cup sour cream, 2 eggs, 5 cup butter, 2 cups flour, scant 3% teaspoonful soda, 1 tablespoonful cream of tartar. Make thirty minutes in a moderate oven.
_Miss M. Candler._
Honey Ginger-nraps,-1 pint honey, 3% l. butter, 2 teaspoonfuls ginger. Boill together a few minutes, and when nearly cold put in flour until it is stiff. Roll out thin, and bake quickly.
Honey Fruit-cake,-1% cups honey, 3 cup butter, 3 cup sweet milk, 2 eggs well betaten, 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 2 cups raisms, 1 teaspoonful each of cloves and cinnamon.
Honey Popcorn Bales,-Take 1 pint extracted honey; put it into an iron frying-pan, and boill until very thick! then stir in freshly popped corn, and when cold, mold into balls. These will specially delight the children.
Honey Carames,-1 cup extracted honey of best flavor, 1 cup granulated sugar, 3 tablespoonfuls sweet cream or milk. Boill to "soft crack," or until it hardens when dropped into cold water, but not too brittle -just so it will form into a soft ball when taken in the fingers. Pour into a greased dish, stirring in a teaspoonful extract of vanilla just before taking off. Let it be 4% or 3 inch deep in the dish; and as it cools cut in squares and wrap each square in paraffine paper, such as grocers wrap butter in. To make chocolate earamels, add to the foregoing 1 tablespoonful melted chocolate, just before taking off the stove, stirring it in well. For chocolate "arames it is not so important that the honey be of best quality.
_Mrs. E. Miller._
Honey Apple-bitter,-1 pailin goal cooking-upples, 1 quart honey, 1 quart honey vinegar, 1 heaping teaspoonful ground cinnamon. Cook several hours, stirring often to prevent burning, If the vinegar is very strong, use part water.
_Mrs. R. C. Akin._
Honey ash Tar Gough-cure,-Put I tablespoonful liquid tar into a shallow tin dish and place it in boiling water until the tar is hot. To this add a pint of extracted honey and stir well for half an hour, adding it to a level teaspoonful pulverized boxar Keep well corked in a bottle. Dose, teaspoonful every one, two, or three hours, according to severity of cough.
_Sumer Honey-brisk,-1_ spoonful fruit juice and 1 spoonful honey in 3 glass water : stir in as much soda as will lie on a silver dime, and then stir in half as much tartaric acid, and drink at once.
Honey Cereal Coffee,-Fresh wheat bran, 5 lbs,: mix with 2 lbs, of rge flour, 2 lbs, of alfalfa honey. Mix the honey with 3 pints of boiling water. After the honey and water have come to a boil, pour into the bran mixture. Stir thoroughly, and kneed to a very stiff dough. Put them through a domestic meat-grind-er or to separate them. Dry in a warm oven. Brown the same as coffee. For a coffee flavor, add 2 lbs, best Moha and Java. Have it all ground and put in air-tight cans for future use.
_I'V. L. Porter._
Honey Paste to put labels on Tin.-Take two spoonfuls of wheat flour and one of honey. Mix the flour and honey, and add boiling water to make it the right thickness. This is fine for labels or wall paper where paper will not stick with ordinary paste.
forcing honey recipes.
_Assiana Gingerbread,-1 lb, honey, 1 lb, flour, ginger to suit, 254 drains bicarbonate soda. The honey is first brought to a boil, preferably in a double boiler. It is then removed from the fire, and the flour well stirred into it, and then the sok (or baking-powder; bake. If sweet gingerbread is wanted, add the white of an egg, well whipped, and more honey. The above will keep well for a year if kept in a cellar._
_Swiss Cookies,-Prepare some dough as for the gingerbread, and mix with it 5 lb, crushed almonds, orange and lemon juice, and cinnamon; and, if desired, tooves to suit the taste._
Honey Fruit-cakes,-4 eggs, 5 teacups flour, 2 teacups honey, 1 teacups honey, 1 teacup butter, 1 teacup sweet milk, 3 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 1 lb, rising, 1 lb, currants, 1 teaspoonful cloves, 1 teaspoonful cinnamon, 1 teaspoonful nutmeg. Then bake in slow oven. The above will keep moist for months._
_Fresh Honey-brisk,-1_ pints flour, 1 cup honey, 5% teaspoonful salt, two teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 2 tablespoonfuls butter, 3 eggs, and a little over half a pint milk or thin cream. Sift together the flour, salt, and powder; rub in the butter cold; add betaten eggs, milk, and honey. Mix smoothly in butter as for pound cake; about half will sponge-cake tins, cold and fully greased, and take bread in good steady oven for eight minutes._
_Freshy for Compton,-dr, Vogel, of the University of North, one of the greatest authorities on the subject of children's diseases, recommends giving the juice of well-st-west prunes, sweetened with honey, to very small children, and not give castor other remedies. This is also a remedy which can be used by adults with good results. Try it._
the same, and then add 4 bits, of eccos. Flavor with vanilla when taken off the fire, and then pour into erased dishes or indels.
Honey Brown Bread.--One cup corn meal, 1 cup grey meat, 1 cup sour mix, 32 cup or less of honey, a transposition of salt and a tenseponful of sodium, steam four hours, and then dry to the oven fifteen minutes. It may be added that most of the molasses now sold is not fit to eat, and in any case honey is much better.
**Honey-boards.** See Comi Honey, and Hives.
**Honey-comi.** For many years all theories as to wax-production were far from the truth. Somewhere between 1744 and 1768 it was discovered that wax is produced between the plates on the lower side of the worker bee's abdomen. The honor of this discovery is usually ascribed to a Lusatian peasant of unknown name. But Thorley, a quaint writer of 1744, speaks of "'six pieces of solid wax, white and transparent like gun within the plaits."*
Footnote *: It was the celebrated annualist John Hunter who discovered just how the bees secrete wax, and thereby settled a vexi question. He communicated his discovery live in paper read before the Royal Society of London, Feb. 26, 1966, and subsequently published in Philosophical Transactions.W. N. M.
Wax is produced at the will of the bee, and when called for by the necessities of the hive. The wax-producing bees obtain a somewhat high temperature, usually by close clustering, although they sometimes hang in slender festoons and chains.
"'Wax is not chemically a fat or glyceride, hence those who have called it 'the fat of bees' have grossly erred; yet it is nearly allied to the fats in atomic constitution, and the physiological conditions favoring the formation of one are curiously similar to those adding in the production of the other. We put our poultry up to fatten in confinement, with partial light; to secure bodily inactivity we keep warm and feed highly. Our bees, under Nature's teaching, pitchanalyses up to yield wax under conditions so parallel that the suitability of the fatting-coop is vindicated."'--_Chhesive_.
On the inner side of the eight plates lining the lower side of the abdomen are about 140,000 glands (Cheshire), from which the wax is secreted as a white liquid, which hardens on exposure to the air. When first formed it is white and very brittle, and is pulled out from between the plates by the pinecrs on the hind legs. The pieces of wax are then passed to the front legs, and thence to the mouth, where they are nude plastic by the addition of various materials in the saliva and by thorough mastication.
From this raw material the sculpture bees make three kinds of cells. First, at certain times of the year, when a new queen is needed, they build a few large, almost perpendicular, peanut-shaped cells. The two other kinds, drone-cells and worker-cells, are-practically the same in form, the drone-cells differing in being larger. As their names imply, they are used for rearing drones (male bees' and workers (undeveloped females). Both kinds of cells are nearly horizontal, slanting upward slightly from the center to the exterior of the comb. Both kinds are utilized for the storage of honey, and this slight inclination facilitates the filling of the cells by preventing the honey from running out before the cap is added. See Fig. 1.
All three forms are _primarily_ cylindrical. The queen-cells, isolated from the others, always remain cylindrical. All solitary bees
Figure 1: Edge of Honey - comb built sent to glass Enlarged view.
have found it advantageous to use machinery by which the same material can be worked over and over. As the combs become old they are melted, the pure wax taken out and remodeled into thin comb-building foundation. But this is in no sense the manufacture of a new product, but an extracting, purifying, and remodeling of the bees' own choice material. It simply saves the bees much arduous labor that machinery can do easier and at less expense, when we consider the effect on the bee.
No one is so foolish as to claim that a suit of clothes made on a machine is any more "artificial " than one sewed by hand. It is simply economy of labor. Yet hundreds of persons have the incorrect notion that there is a honey-comb made from wood pulp, punk, putty, paraffine, or perhaps material other than wax. We say " foolish enough " is advisedly, because a wise man changes his mind (when it becomes necessary); but a fool, never. It would not be surprising in these days of sensational journalism and of false nature-stories if one should get the notion that artificial comb honey really exists; but the foolish part comes in when a person; totally inexperienced with bees, stoutly and smilingly maintains that there is such a thing as manufactured honey in the comb. We feel sure that the initnitably foolish expression of such a person is the origin of the colloquialism, " The smile that won't come off." No use. Do not argue. It won't come. " Why, I've seen it at the stores. Grocer told me all about it--was several cents cheaper. I tried it; we didn't like it as well as the genuine." And then the bee-keeper goes away, not a wiser but a madder man, and wonders why the fool-killer doesn't do his duty, and why every one except the bee-keeper knows all about bees and their products.
It is, however, true that there are many interesting problems about comb-building that even the experienced bee-keeper doesn't know. To us one of the most interesting of these problems has been the fact that bees carry along at the same time the comb and the storage work in the sections in all stages of progress. If an empty super were put on a colony so strong that the bees "bodied "
Figure 5: A study in cell-making.
## Honey-comb.