A Book of Honey [antikvár]

What Is Honey?Honey is one of mankind's most ancient nutriments. It has been consumed together with meat, milk, plants and various seeds, since time immemorial. Cavemen probably became familiar with honey very early on, but only legends and myths remain of the time and circumstances of its discovery.What actually is honey?Honeybees collect nectar from flowers or the sweet fluid on the leaves, shoots and twigs of plants. Then, mixing this with secretions from their glands, transform it and, after depositing it in the comb, ripen it into honey.Honey is primarily of vegetable origin. Its sugars are formed in plants by the sun, from water and the carbon dioxide in the air. Its minerals come from the soil through the sap; its proteins are primarily amino acids of plant origin. Its enzymes, and its hormones and vitamins are of vegetable and animal origin.Bees transform the saccharose of the nectar into honey and invert sugar with the help of enzymes and acids, causing the evaporation of much of its water content at the same time. Transformation goes on during storagethis is why honey is considered a "living substance".The Swedish natural scientist Carl von Linné classified the bee as Apis mellifera (collector of honey) in his taxonomy of animals, but later renamed it Apis mellifica (honey maker) when he realized that the bee's role in producing honey was more significant than he had previously thought. The former name is used in the USSR and the USA, whereas in most European countries, including Hungary, the mellifica version is accepted.The bee is a domestic creature but very dif-ferent from others belonging to this category. You cannot talk to it as to a horse or a donkey, you cannot stroke it or praise it as you can a cow or a dog. Bees are not man's personal friends as cats, goats or lambs may be. They can hardly be altered genetically, unlike Hungarian sheep dogs, basset hounds, St. Bernard dogs or poultry, to mention but a few. Even for the beekeeper, a bee is more of a peculiar object than a pet, it has no emotional ties with its owner. We can care for it, or rather for them, but a bee is not a "creature with a soul", we do not grow of it as of an individual; bees are only of help to man.Man prepares a home for his bees, constructs a drinking place for them and even provides them with food, but cannot hand-feed them or offer them a drink, nor can he educate them or change their habits. Bees need not be urged to work, they will labour assiduously without prompting. What man can do is to provide the right conditions.Bees' produce:Honey, which was the reason for the domestication of the bee, as it meets a constant human need for food.Beeswax, which in the form of candles has provided several generations with light.Pollen, which dried at 40 °C and preserved in carbon dioxide, has become a nutrient in the last sixty years.Propolis, which when removed from the hive and dissolved in alcohol, has antiseptic and analgesic effects. Applied under a plaster it will eliminate boils, swellings, insect bites and the pain caused by them.Bee poison, which is used to alleviate arthritic, especially rheumatic pains.?