People are sometimes surprised that I don’t extract any of my honey. I’ve gotten comments like, “Don’t you understand how energy-intensive that is? You are wasting the bee’s work! You could make a lot more money by extracting!” And so on[1].
So here goes. I will try to explain why I prefer to produce only comb honey.
- This first reason is the most important: I like comb honey. I’ve had trouble finding it over the years, so I decided to produce it myself. (Although I shouldn’t need any other reason, some folks find this insufficient.)
- I don’t want an extractor. In the first place, I don’t have room to store one. Also, they are expensive, hard to clean, and usually look unsanitary. (I’m sure most are very clean; this is just an impression I’ve gotten over time.)
- To me, extracting seems wasteful. By the time you cut cappings, manipulate frames in and out of the extractor, load buckets, run the honey through sieves, and fill bottles you’ve got honey and wax and stickies all over the place. You’ve lost a little part of your crop at every step.
- I’m a hobbyist—not a honey producer—and I have very little use for extracted honey. If I want to use some in a recipe, there is always enough dripping from the bottom of a cut comb.
- Related to the last reason is the fact that I don’t believe honey should be used for cooking. Honey produces hydroxymethylfurfural when heated to even very low temperatures, so I only use honey in uncooked recipes.
- I can get more money for comb honey than extracted. Although I seldom sell it, I get many requests for comb honey. The interest in natural and local foods has made comb honey very popular.
- You don’t need much equipment for comb honey production. Although you can buy supers for producing square or round sections, you can also just cut sections from a regular frame or from your top bars. You not only save on the extractor but you don’t need uncapping knives, buckets, sieves, funnels, jars, and lids.
- The use of an extractor requires either plastic foundations or heavily wired wax foundations which can stand up to the centrifugal force. This is a personal preference, of course, but I try to keep plastic out of my hives altogether. Plastic off-gases in the heat and can impart odd “plasticky” flavors to foods, especially high-acid foods like honey. Some people can taste this and others can’t but, in any case, I strive to keep my honey away from plastic.
- The last reason goes with the first. Comb honey has more flavor and aroma nuances than extracted honey. The wax comb is aromatic and differs depending on the forage the bees consumed while building it. Eating honey without the comb is like eating peanut butter and jelly without the jelly.
So there are my reasons. I have nothing against beekeepers who extract honey, of course. But don’t feel compelled to do it because someone at your local bee club (or your college) thinks you are a few cards short of a full deck.
Rusty
[1]Commercial producers like to re-use their frames because it does take a lot of bee energy to make comb. Estimates vary, but the bees have to eat about 7-8 pounds of honey to make a pound of comb.
Hi Rusty
I’m with you comb honey is the best!!!
I’m in Germany looking at honeybee trials with pesticides and working out how to use them safely with bees. We have some great results!
hope things are going well for you
best regards
Mark
Yup, comb is the way to go. I’ll add to your list of reasons that some of the frames I’ve seen still in
use are downright unsanitary. Using a clean frame with a small starter strip of wax attached to the top
bar gives the bees all the encouragement they need to start building fresh, thin, white wax and, as long as
you have a nectar flow going, filling it up with honey and capping it. Not only is it clean and pleasant
to look at, it also tastes good, too.
Oops! you got me started… reason number two for comb is that it’s sealed by the bees. You -know- that
what’s in there is what the bees put in there, not some adulterated mix of three-year old stores and sugar
water. If you have fresh, clean comb you can also be reasonably sure that no traces of medication are
in there, either.
You are absolutely right, John. Some of the things I’ve witnessed during the extraction process are anything but sanitary. To be fair, I’ve also seen extracting operations that were sparkling clean and highly maintained. But unless you have personally seen the facility, how would you know?
As you point out, sometimes the combs themselves have been used way too many times. So while it may be more energy costly for the bees to produce new comb every year, you are getting a different product when you buy comb honey–one that is clean and fresh and prepared by the bees themselves. It costs more to make and it costs more to buy, but it’s worth it.
If all goes well, this summer will be my first for harvesting honey. I’ve never had an interest in extracting honey. I’ve been attracted to the crush-and-strain method since I first saw a video of it on the Backwards Beekeeping website. Raw cut comb looked great, too.
I picked up some Bee-O-Pacs, but I no idea I could create square sections in the frames for easier removal of the comb honey. I have yet to find a Canadian supplier for anything like that. If I can make happen this summer, though, I will.
Most beekeepers in my area, as far as I know, follow all the conventional methods of beekeeping and harvesting honey. Frames with plastic foundation and honey harvested in an extractor. I’m going foundationless and I’m not using an extractor. I’m all alone (in more ways than one).
I’m slowly working my way through your older posts. So far so good.
As you mentioned before, many things are done just because everyone else does them that way. I try not to let “everyone” influence my decisions. You will really enjoy your comb honey whether you eat it all of a piece or crush it. It is the best honey in the world. This reminds me that I have a bunch more posts to write for my “comb honey” series. I should get to work.