HONEY
Bees are sometimes fed with cane sugar. Often glucose syrup is poured over honeycomb from which the honey has been extracted, and the mixture sold as genuine honey.
Gelatin may be added to increase the weight or to thicken the more voluble adulterants.
The ash of genuine honey is not over 0.3 per cent. Whenever the ash is greater than this it should be tested for calcium sulfate, the presence of a considerable quantity of which is an almost certain proof that starch glucose or invert sugar has been added to the honey. Sulfates may be detected by adding barium chlorid to the aqueous solution of the honey and precipitating barium sulfate.
If the ash is high and considerable chlorids are present, molasses has quite probably been added to the honey. The presence of chlorids may be determined by the addition of silver nitrate which precipitates silver chlorid.