What is Honey?
Honey is made from the nectar secreted by thousands of varieties of flowers. This nectar is gathered by bees and modified by them chemically. Water is evaporated out of it and it is ripened into a delicious and wholesome food.
Before cane sugar was manufactured in quantities for commercial use honey was the most common sweet in human food. In pioneering days it was hunted systematically in hollow trees and crevices in rocks. Wild honey so secured was considered well worth the time spent in seeking it.
There is another form of honey designated as abnormal, since it does not come from the nectar of flowers, but is, nevertheless, gathered by bees. It is developed from a sweet substance known as honey dew, deposited on the leaves of plants by certain insects such as plant lice. In some regions honey dew is not found at all. Where found, the amount that bees gather is negligible in comparison with the amount of nectar gathered from blossoms. Nectar is so changed chemically and modified by ripening and evaporating after being gathered by bees, that in the form of honey it is readily digested and assimilated.