Honey is the sweet juice of flowers prepared for our use by the honeybee. The working bees extract it from the nectaries of the flowers, deposit it in their crop or honey-bag, which is an expansion of the gullet, and disgorge it when they return to the hive. Some chemical change probably takes place in the juice while secreted in the insect's crop, and transforms it to honey. When suffered to stand for a length of time liquid honey thickens.

If it is then pressed through a linen bag, a thick syrup will flow out, and crystals of solid white sugar will be found remaining in the strainer. This is precisely the same as the grape sugar procured from raisins.

Honey contains besides this grape sugar yellow colouring matter, wax, and gum. Honey is flavoured by the flowers which feed the hive. Hence the honey of Crete, Minorca and Narbonne is flavoured with rosemary, that of Hymettus with thyme, Provence honey with lavender, Cuba honey with the orange flower.

Sometimes honey becomes poisonous by the bees sucking the rhododendron, azalea, monkshood, or kalmias.

The honey of Trebizond causes headache, vomiting, and a species of intoxication in those who eat it.

It was probably a rhododendron honey which intoxicated the soldiers of Xenophon, during the famous retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Strong spirits are obtained from fermented honey - Mead, Metheglin, and Hydromel - but they are no longer used in England.

How To Keep Honey

Heat strained honey to the boiling point, and store it in covered jars, when it will keep without candying. To prevent danger of burning, set the vessel in which it is to be heated into another containing water.

American Honey Cakes

One quart of honey; half a pound of powdered white sugar; half a pound of fresh butter; two lemons; one nutmeg, and one pound and three-quarters of flour.

Press the juice from the lemons, strain the honey; mix the honey, powdered sugar, and butter together with the lemon-juice. Put them in a stewpan and warm them slightly over the fire till the butter is softened; shake into it gradually a pound and three-quarters of flour (sifted). Make it into dough stiff enough to roll out; beat it well with a rolling-pin, then roll it out to half an inch thick; dip the top of a tumbler in flour, and cut this paste into rounds with it: lay them in tin pans, slightly buttered, ana bake them.

Honey Cakes

Three pounds and a half of flour; one pound and a half of honey; half a pound of sugar; half a pound of butter; half a nutmeg grated; one tablespoonful of ground ginger; one teaspoonful of saleratus, or carbonate of soda.

Mix the sugar with the flour and grated ginger, and work the whole into a smooth dough with the butter beaten to a cream, the honey and saleratus, or soda, dissolved in a little hot water. Roll it a quarter of an inch think, cut it into small cakes, and bake them twenty-five minutes in a moderate oven.

Honey Noyau

Time to make, ten days.

Four ounces of bitter almonds; two ounces of sweet almonds; two pounds of loaf sugar; juice of three lemons; two quarts of gin; two large tablespoonfuls of clarified honey; one pint of milk.

Blanch and pound the almonds, and mix them with the sugar, which should be rolled. Boil the milk, and when cold, mix all the ingredients together, and let them stand ten days, shaking them every day. Filter the mixture through blotting paper, bottle off for use, and seal the corks down.