Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/150

138 138 HONEY that Isa. vii. 15 refers. Cream or fresh butter together with honey, and with or without bread, is a favourite dish with the Arabs. Among the observances at the Fandroana, or New Year s Festival, in Madagascar, is the eating of mingled rice and honey by the queen and her guests ; in the same countiy honey is placed in the sacred water of sprinkling used at the blessing of the children previous to circumcision (Sibree, The Great African Is., pp. 219, 314, 1880). Honey was frequently employed in the ancient religious ceremonies of the heathen, but was forbidden as a sacrifice in the Jewish ritual (Lev. ii. 11). With milk or water it was presented by the Greeks as a libation to the dead (Odyss., xi. 27 ; Eurip., Orest., 115). A honey-cake was the monthly food of the fabled serpent-guardian of the Acropolis (Herod., viii. 41). By the aborigines of Peru honey was offered to the sun. The Hebrew word translated &quot;honey in the authorized version of the English Bible is dcbash, practically synonymous with which are jdar or jdariih had-dcbash (1 Sam. xix. 25-27 ; cf. Cant. v. 1) and nopketh (Ps. xix. 10, &c.), rendered &quot;honey-comb.&quot; Dcbash denotes bee-honey (as in Deut. xxxii. 13, and Jud. xiv. 8); the manna of trees, by some writers considered to have been the &quot; wild honey &quot; eaten by John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 4) ; the syrup of dates or the fruits themselves ; and probably in some passages (as Gen. xliii. 11 and Ez. xxvii. 17) the syrupy boiled juice of the grape, resembling thin molasses, in use in Palestine, especially at Hebron, under the name of dibs (see Kitto, Cyclop., and E. llob- iiisoii, Bill. Res., ii. 81). Josephus (B. J., iv. 8, 3) speaks highly of a honey produced at Jericho, consisting of the expressed juice of the fruit of palm trees; and Herodotus (iv. 194) mentions a similar preparation made by the Gyzantians in North Africa, where it is still in use. The honey most esteemed by the ancients was that of Mount Hybla in Sicily, and of Mount Hymettus in Attica (vol. iii. p. 59). Mahaffy (Rambles in Greece, p. 148, 2d ed., 1878) describes the honey of Hymettus as by no means so good as the produce of other parts of Greece not to say of the heather hills of Scotland and Ireland. That of Thebes, and more especially that of Corinth, which is made in the thymy hills towards Cleona?. he found much better (cf. vol. xi. p. 88). Honey and wax, still largely obtained in Corsica (vol. vi. p. 440), were in olden times the chief produc tions of the island. In England, in the 13th and 14th centuries, honey sold at from about 7cl. to Is. 2d. a gallon, and occasionally was disposed of by the swarm or hive, or ruscha (Rogers, Hist, of Agric. and Prices in Eng., i. 418). At Vrexham, Denbigh, Wales, two honey fairs are annually held, the one on the Thursday next after the 1st September, and the other, the more recently instituted and by far the larger, on the Thursday following the first Wednes day in October. In Hungary the amounts of honey and of wax are in favourable years respectively about 190,000 and 12,000 cwt, and in unfavourable years, as, e.g., 1874, about 12,000 and 3000 cwt. The hives there in 1870 numbered 617,407 (or 40 per 1000 of the population, against 45 in Austria). Of these 365,711 were in Hungary Proper, and 91,348 (87 per 1000 persons) in the Military Frontier (Keleti, Uebersicht der Bcvolk. Ungarns, 1871 ; Schwicker, Statistik d. K. Unyarn, 1877). In Poland the system of bee-keeping introduced by Dolinowski has been found to afford an average of 40 lt&amp;gt; of honey and wax and two new swarms per hive, the common peasant s hive yielding, with two swarms, only 3 lb of honey and wax. In forests and places remote from villages in Podolia and parts of Volhynia, as many as 1000 hives may be seen in one apiary. In the district of O.strolenka, in the government of Plock, and in the woody region of Pole.sia, in Lithuania, a method is practised of rearing bees in excavated trunks of trees (Stanton, &quot; On the Treatment of Bees in Poland,&quot; Technologist, vi. 45, 1866). When, in August, in the loftier valleys of Bormio, Italy, flowering ceases, the bee ; in their wooden hives are by means of spring-carts transported at night to lower regions, where they obtain from the buckwheat crops the inferior honey which serves them for winter consumption (lb., p. 38). In Palestine, &quot; the land flowing with milk and honey&quot; 1 (Ex. iii. 17; Numb. xiii. 27), wild bees are very numerous, especially in the wilderness of Judtea, and the selling of their produce, obtained from crevices in rocks, hollows in trees, and elsewhere, is with ninny of the inhabitants a means of subsistence. Commenting on 1 Sam. xiv. 26, J. Roberts (Oriental lllust. ) remarks that in the East &quot;the forests literally flow with honey ; large combs may be seen hanging on the trees, as you pass along, full of honey.&quot; In Galilee, and at Bethlehem and other places in Palestine, bee-keeping is extensively 1 In Sanskrit, madhu-kulya, a stream of honey, is sometimes used to express an overflowing abundance of good things (Monier Williams, Sansk.-Eng. Did., p. 736, 1872). carried on. The hives are sun-burnt tubes of mud, about 4 feet in length and 8 inches in diameter, and, with the exception of a small central aperture for the passage of the bees, closed at each end with mud. These are laid together in long rows, or piled pyramid ally, and are protected from the sun by a covering of mud and of the caves in its precipitous rocks to the south. In various regions of Africa, as on the west, near the Gambia, bees abound. Cameron was informed by his guides that the large quantities of honey at the cliffs by the river Makanyazi were under the protection of an evil spirit, and not one of his men could be persuaded to gather any (Across Africa, i. 266). On the precipitous slopes of the Teesta valley, in India, the procuring of honey from the pendulous bees - nests, which are sometimes large enough to be conspicuous features at a mile s distance, is the only means by which the idle poor raise their annual rent (Hooker, Him. Journ., ii. 41). To reach the large tombs of Apis dorsata and A. tcslacea, the natives of Timor, by whom both the honey and young bees are esteemed delicacies, ascend the trunks of lofty forest trees by the use of a loop of creeper. Protected from the myriads of angry in sects by a small torch only, they detach the combs from the under surface of the branches, and lower them by slender cords to the ground (Wallace, Journ. Linn. Soc., Zool., vol. xi.). For additional facts concerning honey, and a sketch of the processes of apiculture usually adopted in the Old World, see the article BEE, vol. iii. pp. 484-503. On honey, and bees and bee-keeping in general, see, besides the above-men tioned works, J. lionner, A Neiv Plan for speedily increasing the number of B*e- hiv. s in Scotland, 1795, containing the substance of The Bee-Master s Companion, 1789, by the same author; V. Rendu, Traite pratique sur les Abeilles, 1838; M linn s Honey Bee, ed. by E. Bevan ; J. Samuelson, Humble Creatures, pt. ii., 1S6U; H. Taylor, The Bee-Keeper s Manual, Gth ed., I860; F. Cowan, Curious facts in the History of Insects, pp. 174-215, 18G5 ; A. Neighbour, The Apiary, 2d ed., 1866; W. E. Shuckard, British Bees, 1866; A. Pettigrew, The Handy Book of Bees, 1870; G. de Layens, Elcvage des Abeilles par les Precedes Modernes, 1874 ; J. de Hidalgo Tablada, Tratado de las Abrjat, Madr., 1875; A. J. Danyell, The Italian System of Bee-Keeptng, 1876; and A. II. Hassall, Food and its Adul terations, p. 260, 187C. (F. II. B.) HONEY-FARMING IN AMERICA. So rapid of late years has been the development of bee-keeping in the United States, that the taking of steps to secure the fullest and most accurate details with respect to that industry has been deemed necessary by the commis sioners of agriculture. It has been estimated by several intelligent bee-keepers that there are in the United States 700,000 hives of bees, owned by 35,000 people, of whom at least 30,000 are farmers possessing on an average not more than 3 hives each, the remain ing 5000 being professional apiarians. Mr G. M. Doolittle, of Borodino, N.Y., on the Auburn branch of the New York Central Railway, obtained in 1877 an average of 100 lb of honey ;ipiece from his hives, and from one of them the exceptionally large yield of 700 lb. It is not unreasonable to say that the hives in the United States afford each a net supply of about 50 lb of surplus honey, which, selling at 20 cents (lOd. ) per lb, returns a good profit to the owners. All American honey is classed by the api- culturist according to the plants from which it is derived. It is only in rare cases that pasturage is specially cultivated for the bees. In the States east of the Rocky Mountains there are three chief sources of honey. Those which yield the most delicately flavoured and whitest and therefore most valuable commodity (see above) are, first, the immense forests of basswood, the honey from which has perhaps a slight minty flavour, ami, secondly, white clover grass, cultivated throughout the States for hay nnd stock pasture, which furnishes a honey pronounced by competent judges superior to that of the world-renowned Hymettus. Bees having access to both basswood and white clover frequently store the honey from each in the same cells. The third and often richest source of supply is buckwheat, which blossoms after the basswood and white clover have ceased to yield. The pungent honey obtained therefrom, though by its dark colour rendered unsuitable for the table, is greatly valued for manufacturing purposes, more especially in the brewing of fine beer, since it forms a perfectly clear solution, ferments well, and is richer in saccharine matter than the glucose commonly employed by brewers, which moreover is apt to be con taminated with the acids employed in its preparation. Buckwheat honey is also accounted a good remedy in bronchial affections, and is therefore in request for the making of cough mixtures. The day is probably not far distant when the refining of the large quantities of dark honey which are harvested will be undertaken on an extensive scale. For the successful prosecution of bee-keeping energy and perse verance, as well as experience and considerable capital, are requisite. There are not more than four bee-keepers in the United States who own so many as 2500 or 3000 hives. The largest apiaries are the property of Mr J. S. Harbison of California. They are six in number, and situated within easy patrol distance from one another