HONEY, a sweet vegetable juice, collected by the bees from the flowers of various plants, and deposited in the cells of the comb; from which it is extracted either by spontaneous percolation through a sieve in a warm place, the comb being separated and laid thereon, or by expression. That which runs spontaneously is purer than that which is expressed, a quantity of the wax and other matters being forced out along with it by the pressure. The best sort of honey is of a thick consistency, a whitish colour inclining to yellow, an agreeable smell, and pleasant taste; both the colour and flavour are said to differ in some degree, according to the plants which the bees collect it from. It is supposed that honey is merely the juice of the flower perspiring, and becoming inspissated thereon; and that the bee takes it up with its proboscis, and carries it to be deposited in its waxen cells, with which the young bees are to be fed in summer, and the old ones in winter: but it is certain, that honey can be procured by no other method of collecting this juice than by the bees. The honey wrought by the young bees, and that which is permitted to run from the comb without heat or pressure, is white and pure, and called virgin's honey. The honey of old bees, and that which is forced from the comb by heat or pressure, is yellow, from the wax. Honey produced where the air is clear and hot, is better than that where the air is variable and cold.—The honey of Narbonne in France, where rosemary abounds, is said to have a very manifest flavour of that plant, and to be imitable by adding to other honey an infusion of rosemary flowers.—Honey, considered as a medicine, is a very useful detergent and aperient, powerfully dissolving viscoid
viscid juices, and promoting the expectoration of tough phlegm: in some particular constitutions it has an inconvenience of griping, or of proving purgative; this is said to be in some measure prevented by previously boiling the honey.