Turkey is the fourth largest producer of honey in the world, and produces many different kinds. Honey made by bees from the nectar of spesific flowers and tree blossoms, such as linden, mint, ash and orange, are valued for their distinctive flavours and properties.Who discovered honey and when is as much a mystery as the discovery of fire. The earliest piece of evidence was found in a cave near the Spanish city of Valen­cia. In a primitive picture scratched on the walls of the Arana cave, a girl collecting honey looks out at us from sixteen thousand years ago. The earliest written docu­ments about honey, on the other hand, are four thou­sand year-old Hittite clay tablets found in Turkey which tell us that honey was used to cure various illness­es. Moving on in time to ancient Egypt, honey itself preserved in tightly closed jars has been discovered in the pyramids, proving that the Egyptians valued honey so much that they were determined to take it with them into the next world. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, believed honey to be as essential as air and water. So we see that throughout human history this miraculous store of sugar in forms directly absorbable by the body, minerals, pollen and antiseptic substances has been eaten, drunk, or applied to the skin. The wax of which the comb is made has also been used for innumerable purposes. Although ordi­nary honey has been used widely for medicinal purpos­es, there is one kind of Turkish honey which can be dangerous. That is deli bal, or mad honey, which has a bitter flavour, probably deriving from poisonous plants visited by the wild bees, and can paralyse the central nervous system  if eaten in more than tiny      quantities. Xenophon's   army experienced tempo­rary madness when after crossing the mountains from Per­sia into northeastern Turkey they ate the honey of Trabzon in the 4th century BC. Turkey is the fourth largest producer of honey in the world, and many regions of the country produce celebrated honeys with varying flavours, depending on the flowers used by the bees for their source. Honey made by bees from the nectar of specif­ic flowers and tree blossoms, such as lin­den, mint, ash, and orange, can be purchased and are valued for their distinctive flavours and proper­ties. Good quality honey should be  made from  nectar alone, not from sugar fed to the bees. The popular notion    that pure   honey should   not crystallise   is untrue,       and instead to discover whether your honey is the real thing you must place 50 grams of honey in a bottle with a 30 ml of water and 70 ml of pure alcohol and shake the bottle well. If a white sediment forms then your honey contains sugar. If it crystallises it is pure, and there is no need to do the test. The crystals can be dissolved by setting the jar in a pan of hot water at 5>~ degrees Centigrade for three hours. Excess heat and below zero temperatures cause honey to deteriorate, at it should be stored in a tightly closed glass jar awa\ from strong light or in a glazed pottery jar. Honey has a therapeutic effect in many complaints such as hardening of the arteries, heart disease, prob­lems of the digestive system, eye infections, hang-overs, anaemia, constipation, coughs and colds. Here are a few tips and home remedies-.

For sore throat, bronchitis, sinusitis, and bleeding of the gums, try chewing a lump of honeycomb for five to ten minutes. Lighting a candle made of fresh beeswax is also recommended for the same purpose. If you wake up suffering from a hang-over, stir half a cup of honey into the same quantity of lemon and orange juice and drink it. You will feel better almost immediately.

In summer if the heat makes you feel listless, dilute a couple of spoonfuls of honey in a glass of cold water, and you will feel refreshed and revitalised. For insomnia, slowly suck one or two large spoonfuls of honey about half an hour before going to bed, or drink a mixture of one tablespoon of honey and three table­spoons of apple vinegar.

Coughs can be soothed by hot milk or a fruit tea sweet­ened with honey. Alternatively, honey mixed with carrot or radish juice has a similar effect. If you do not have a juice extractor, cut the carrot or radish in slices, pour the honey over and leave for a few hours, then strain.

Regular doses of pollen, which sticks to the legs of the worker bees as they collect nectar and is gathered in traps at the entrance to the hive, is a reliable cure for for-getfulness.

When dieting eat a tablespoon
of honey after meals. This both
helps to keep up your vitality and
makes you feel satisfied with even a
meagre meal!
And finally try honey as a beauty treatment. Prepare
your own face mask by mixing an egg yolk, half a tea­
spoon of honey, and a tablespoon of oatmeal, rye meal,
or dried camomile.
So keep healthy and beautiful on honey!