wow... It is eye-opening for me.
Honey Industry could be even more useful if featured properly.....
Like much of the things in DF, honey comes from a time when humans had rather limited resources with regards to chemicals, and as such, anything that was naturally occurring and relatively useful was used to the fullest extent they knew how.
Many plants, animal products, and even waste products were used for their chemical properties in far more ways than we would consider using them now, when we have chemistry advanced to the point where we don't think about where we get the stuff that comes out of plastic bottles.
Ammonia, for example, is a common cleaning chemical, (whose chemical compound is NH
3) used in a wide range of everyday purposes, including as one of the most common forms of fertilizer in the world... but it originally comes from Lant, which is distilled from CO(NH
2)
2 Urea, the "active ingredient" in a certain common waste product of humans and animals alike.
Lant was once so valuable to so many industries (as it was a binding chemical for dyes, cleaning agent for both floors and clothing, fertilizer, and even a component for the making of gunpowder as a source of nitrates for saltpeter) that it was actually a crime in some areas to throw out your pee instead of letting it be harvested for its full economic potential.
Lant was even used as a food preservative, itself, especially on pastries, since it made them seem to shine in the sun.
Now don't you want to go experience the medieval lifestyle a little?