Sara Scanga
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Cut comb honey basics

4/2/2018

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This year, for the first time, I'm finally going to produce some cut comb honey.  I've wanted to do it for several years, but haven't.  This year is the year!

I thought it would be helpful to explain a bit about why cut comb honey is desirable, and also why it is so expensive compared to extracted (regular) honey.

What is cut comb honey?
In my last blog post, I discussed how honey is extracted.  I explained that honey is stored by the bees in frames of honeycomb.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe go read my previous post.)  

To make cut comb honey, the beekeeper cuts intact honeycomb (with honey inside) off the wooden frame, then boxes it up for sale just like that!  

I don't have any pictures of my own cut comb honey to show yet, but there's a pretty picture in this article.  

Why is cut comb honey expensive?
So if cut comb honey saves the beekeeper the time of extracting honey, why does it cost more than extracted honey???  I'm telling you, this is a PLOT by beekeepers to get RICH.  I'm gonna blow this whole thing wide open!!!

The reason cut comb honey is expensive comes back to drawn comb.  Drawn honeycomb, as I explained in my previous blog post, is extremely valuable to beekeepers.  Because it saves the bees from having to make new wax cells, it allows the bees to make more honey for the beekeeper.  It also seems to make the bees want to ramp up honey production.  They seem to get extra busy and productive, knowing that there are empty wax cells that need to be filled with honey.  The best way to make bees want to make honey in the spring is to put on some drawn comb. (And one of the best ways to make this beekeeper happy in the wintertime is to visit my boxes of drawn comb in the barn.  They smell like bees and honey and summer.)

When the beekeeper produces cut comb honey, it means that the drawn comb is not returned to the bees.  The bees therefore must make all new wax before they can fill honey frames with nectar/honey.  This means a lot more work/bees/resources must be expended by the beehive.  That work ends up costing the beekeeper in bees, time, and honey.  

And that is why cut comb honey is more expensive than extracted honey.

Why is cut comb honey worth the time and expense?
The reason I want to make cut comb honey is that it is AMAZING.  

One of the reasons raw local honey is so special is that the delicate floral perfumes and tastes that originate in flower nectar are preserved, whereas they seem to be absent (at least given the limits of my sensory abilities) in heated, filtered supermarket honey.  Cut comb honey takes that excellence of freshness, smell, and taste one step further.  In cut comb honey, the honey remains perfectly preserved within its wax cell until the cell is opened.  Therefore, all the delicate smells and tastes that were in the nectar remain in the honey that is within the cut comb, unchanged, until you eat it!  It is the freshest honey it is possible to find, unless you're a beekeeper who often does some snacking right out of the hive while checking her bees...  :)

Cut comb honey can also take longer to crystallize than extracted honey.  And it retains all of the pollen and probiotics that were in the honey when the bees sealed it up with a wax capping.  

How do you eat it?
Kids: "With your fingers. Then you lick them off and wipe the spit on your brother."
Adults: "No!  We use utensils!!"

Many people take a chunk of the cut comb off with a knife or spoon, and spread it on toast. My kids like to remove a chunk and plop it straight into their mouths like chewing gum.  They chew until all the honey is gone, then (I think?) either swallow the wax or spit it outside when I'm not looking.  


Old-school
My grandmother gave me this glass dish a couple of summers ago.  She asked me, "Do you know what this is for?"  I guessed it was for candy.  She kept looking at me, waiting patiently for me to catch on, but my detective skills were disappointing and she had to tell me that it was for storing cut comb honey.  Brilliant!  The extra honey drips to the bottom and then can be used later.  

I can't wait to use it this summer.
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Extracting honey

4/2/2018

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Honeycomb
Honey extracting starts with honeycomb. 

Bees make wax cells in which they store their honey, and these wax cells collectively are called honeycomb.  Famously, these cells are all perfect hexagons, as you can see in the bottom of the image to the right. So aesthetically pleasing! {swoon}  

When the wax cells are full of honey, and the bees have decided the honey is ready, they cap the wax cell with some additional wax to keep the honey fresh and clean for storage.  You can see in the image to the right that the wax cells in the top of the photo have been capped with wax.

Honey frames
Many beekeepers, myself included, induce their bees to make honeycomb on wooden rectangular frames.  Frames are a wonderful thing because using them keeps the hive organized, which makes it possible for the beekeeper to easily inspect her honeybees and make sure they are healthy.  Medium-sized frames, the size that many beekeepers use for honey production, cost about $1.20 each (not including shipping costs) and take slow-pokes like me about 5 minutes each to assemble.  You can see the edges of the rectangular frame in the image above.  

Extracting honey
When it is time to remove honey from the beehive, the beekeeper simply removes the frames full of honey and cuts off the wax cappings.  ----Wait, no, bahahahahaha, back up, back up!  I'm laughing at my use of the word  "simply" because it is not always very simple to remove honey frames from beehives.

As you might expect, there are always bees on the honey frames, sometimes many thousands of bees, and they aren't always in the mood to be removed from the frames when the beekeeper wishes to remove the frames for extraction.  It can take quite some time (and sometimes a few stings) to remove the frames from the beehives and bring them to a secure location where the honey can be removed.  Depending on the time of year, the bees can be totally relaxed about the beekeeper removing honey, or on a flame-throwing rampage about it.  Below is an image of my beeyard showing a mature hive with 4 honey supers on top (i.e., 4 boxes containing 9 honey frames each).  The little hive to the right is nothing to worry about; it's just a brand new hive that needs some time to grow.

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After "simply" removing the frames from the hives and taking off the wax cappings, my family and I put the frames into our extractor. The extractor is like a very large, stainless steel centrifuge.  My extractor holds 6 medium-sized frames at one time.
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We put the frames inside of the extractor and it spins around very fast, flinging the honey out of the frames and onto the sides of the extractor.
Then the honey slowly flows down the sides and out the spout at the bottom, where we collect it.  ​
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Because there are always some wax cappings mixed in with the honey, I allow the honey to flow through a metal strainer (see image above). The strainer catches the wax, leaving the honey to flow into a collection bucket. After letting the honey sit in the bucket for 24-48 hours, I bottle it up into glass jars, where it stays until someone eats it.

After extracting, I'm not done yet.  Yes, was up early in the morning to remove the honey frames from the hives.  Then my family helped me to extract the honey from the frames for 6-10 hours.  We are all tired and sweaty and in need of cold beverages and a swim.  But before I'm done, I must return the frames to the beehive (or sometimes, the beeyard), where the busy bees clean up any remaining honey, polish the wax cells out, and start filling them back up again with fresh nectar.

Drawn comb
These frames that I return to the bees are jam-packed with empty wax cells, ready to receive new nectar; they are known as frames of "drawn comb."  Drawn comb is very valuable to beekeepers because it jump starts the ability of the bees to make honey.  This makes sense, because drawn comb saves the bees a step in the honey-making and storing process.  Here is the honey-making and storage process*:
  1. make wax cells (honeycomb)
  2. fill honeycomb with nectar
  3. ripen the nectar into honey
  4. cap the wax cells to preserve the honey
*the hive is usually involved in all 4 stages of honey production at once in different portions of a frame, or at least across different parts of the hive.

So drawn comb allows the bees to skip step 1 (making honeycomb) and head straight to step 2 (filling the comb with nectar).  The bees seem to absolutely love the efficiency of drawn comb, and they go to town producing many, many frames of surplus honey multiple times per summer.  If I instead fail to return the drawn comb to the bees, they have to start over all the way back on step 1, drawing out new wax cells before they can store new nectar (step 2). Because wax production is time-consuming, it holds up honey production for the hive.  

The reason I just used a whole paragraph to rhapsodize about drawn comb is because it relates to my next honey blog post, which will be all about cut comb honey!  Until then, here's an image of some freshly extracted honey--yum! (And let's not ignore the beautiful Calendula inflorescences in the background!)
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    Sara Scanga, Ph.D.

    I'm an ecologist studying plants at multiple scales, from organisms to ecosystems.  I'm also a beekeeper at Irish Ridge Honey. 

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