Honey, bread and ants

Meaning

Honey is said to have no particular preservative except avoidance of its enemy, bread. The paragraph then alleges that even a little spelt bread makes all the honey turn into ants and perish. The nouns supply a striking final example of the book’s enemy framework and spontaneous-generation assumptions. The statement is not merely that ants may be attracted to honey; replacing it with that familiar observation would change the source’s claim.