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What is a section super?

Instead of building honeycomb in long rectangular frames, honey bees can be encouraged to build comb in small sections. These small sections are usually square or round. In the photo below the square sections are about 4 inches on a side and the rounds are 4 inches across, so the area of the squares is about 16 square inches and the area of the rounds is about 12.5 square inches.

A square section and a round section. They were harvested at different times of the year so the honey is different colors.
A square section and a round section. They were harvested at different times of the year so the honey is different colors.

Both square and round sections are put in frames that have the same orientation as a regular frame. In other words, the frames are parallel to each other and run along the length of the super. The frames for each type hold four sections. As you can see in the photos below the wooden frames hold four square sections and the plastic frames hold four round sections. The geometry is similar to a regular frame that holds foundation.

This frame holds four square sections. The propolis stains can be avoided by painting the section boxes with paraffin before putting them in the hive.
This frame holds four square sections. The propolis stains can be avoided by painting the section boxes with paraffin before putting them in the hive.
This frame holds four round sections. The plastic disks prevent burr comb and cross bracing.
This frame holds four round sections. The plastic disks prevent burr comb and cross bracing.

These frames fit into specially designed supers called “section supers”—basically these are just supers sized to hold sections. As you can see in the photo below, a section super designed for squares can hold seven frames of four sections—28 altogether. A section super designed for rounds can hold eight rows of four sections—32 altogether.

This section super holds seven rows of four sections.
This section super holds seven rows of four sections.
The Ross Round super holds eight rows of four sections.
The Ross Round super holds eight rows of four sections.

There is extra space in both types of section super because the dimensions of a Langstroth hive are a little bigger than the size of the frames allow, but not big enough to hold another whole frame. This extra space is taken up with a follower board and springs. The board and springs keep the sections tight within the box. They also maintain “bee space” between the frames so propolis and burr comb are kept to a minimum.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Excluding your queen . . . or not

Do I use a queen excluder? The answer is “absolutely.” As a matter of fact, I used one all winter to keep my dog out of the chicken yard. It fits perfectly over a hole in the fence and was easy to install with cable ties.

Oh, you mean for bees? Heavens, no. Never, never. I’m of the group that believes a queen excluder is a honey excluder. Not only that, they are in the way and always gummed up with propolis. I tried them one year and gave up.

So how do I keep my queen out of the honey supers? Simple. I put a section honey super directly above the brood chamber and put the rest of the honey supers above that. No queen in her right mind will venture into a section super to lay eggs. It simply isn’t regal enough. A queen wants a mansion, not a cubicle. She wants her family altogether in one place, not in separate rooms.

Okay, once in a great while a spirited queen will wander up and try it out, but as soon as the thrill is gone, she will wander down whence she came. About once every three years I find a couple of sections with a row of brood at the bottom, but it doesn’t happen often enough to worry about.

It doesn’t matter if you use square or round sections, either one works fine for this purpose. Above the section super you can put any type of honey super you like, including more section supers, cut-comb supers, or extracting supers. The queen just doesn’t want to go there.

With this method you can stop worrying about whether you are excluding the queen, the honey, or the drones. Rather than getting a headache from all that fretting, you get a super of comb honey instead. And if the colony fills the sections quickly—and some do it better than others—you can always pull out the sections and replace them with empties.

In the meantime, keep that excluder for something useful.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

How to cut comb honey

Whenever I bake cinnamon rolls, I always slice the delicate roll of dough with dental floss. I wrap the floss around the dough and pull it tight like a ligature. The result is a clean cut that doesn’t compress.

Lately I’ve started using this same technique for cutting comb honey. It seems that a knife, no matter how sharp, compresses more than it cuts. In addition, the surface of the blade gets so sticky that it tears the comb, even on the first cut with a clean knife.

Why dental floss? I find many uses for dental floss in the kitchen because it is so strong. For example, I always use it for trussing the Thanksgiving turkey, even if it’s green and minty. It holds up well in the oven and keeps the bird together for the duration of a long roast. Plus—and this is important—my dentist gives me a free sample every six months of a type I never use for its intended purpose. I buy my favorite brand and stick his in a drawer—miles of it, last I looked.

If you don’t have dental floss you can use thread. Regular sewing-weight thread is so thin it’s hard to handle, but button hole thread works well. You could also use the kind of wire you use for strengthening Langstroth frames, or you could try fishing line.

To cut the comb honey into pieces, I put the frame of honey on a cooling rack and put that on top of a baking sheet to catch the mess. First I cut the comb from the frame and let it drip for awhile. Then I slide a piece of floss under the comb, line it up to the size I want, cross the ends, and just pull—slowly and steadily. It makes an amazingly neat cut with no jagged edges and a minimum of honey loss.

Then I slide the pieces apart just enough for the honey to drain. After a few hours the dripping is done and you can move the chunks with a spatula and package them anyway you want. Give a piece to your dentist, just don’t tell him how you did it.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Start by cutting the comb as close to the frame as possible.
Start by cutting the comb as close to the frame as possible.
Gently remove the frame and let the comb drip for a few minutes.
Gently remove the frame and let the comb drip for a few minutes.
Carefully slide the floss under the comb, being careful not to catch it on the wax.
Carefully slide the floss under the comb, being careful not to catch it on the wax.
Pull the floss up and cross it.
Pull the floss up and cross it.
Pull on the crossed threads to gently cut the wax. Once through, your thread will pop out the top.
Pull on the crossed threads to gently cut the wax. Once through, your thread will pop out the top.
A nice clean cut. Let it drain for an hour or so then package.
A nice clean cut. Let it drain for an hour or so then package.

No extractor, no problem

You are a new beekeeper with a hive—maybe two—and a half-dozen frames of harvestable honey. You can’t figure out how to get the honey out of the comb, so you want to know if you should buy an extractor.

I always say no to this one. An extractor is an expensive storage problem that you use once a year, so unless you have lots of honey to sell, I would skip it. If you buy an extractor and beekeeping doesn’t work out for you, you will be left with this odd-looking device that can only do one thing. If you buy just a small extractor and then expand your operation, you will regret that too. So just wait on the extractor until you really, really need it.

In the meantime there are several things you can do to prepare your honey for family and friends.

Cut comb

Cut comb honey is easy to prepare, fun to look at, and quite popular. All you need is a sharp knife, a baker’s cooling rack or queen excluder, a tray or baking sheet to catch the drips, and packaging for the finished product.

Just place the cooling rack or queen excluder on the tray or baking sheet, then lay the frame of honey on top of that. Slice the comb into pieces (4-inch squares are popular) with the sharp knife. To keep the comb clean, wipe the knife after each cut. Move the cut pieces slightly apart and allow them to drain for several hours. Once drained, you can place the pieces on small food trays or plates and cover with food wrap. Collect the honey in the tray and save it for the times you need extracted honey.

Obviously you can’t do this if you’ve used plastic foundation. Always use wax foundation in honey supers, or better yet, go foundationless and let the bees build their own.

Crush and Strain

Cut the comb from the frame and place it in a bowl or pan. If you have plastic foundation, scrape the comb off each side and place it in the bowl. To crush the comb you can use a potato masher, which works well in a flat-bottomed bowl, or a pestle, which works well in a round-bottomed bowl. You can also use a heavy wooden spoon or a smooth stone.

Crushing comb is the heartbreaking part, but once you get started it’s not so bad. You need to crush every cell, so keep working until there are no lumps.

Next, strain the honey through cheesecloth, a paint strainer, or a commercial honey strainer. A honey strainer is rigid, so that’s easy. If I’m using a paint strainer or cheesecloth, I put it inside a mesh kitchen strainer for support. I put the strainer over a bucket or pan, cover it to keep off the dust, and let it sit in a warm place overnight. The warmer the place, the faster the honey will drain. But it shouldn’t get hot because you don’t want the wax to melt.

If you have only a small bit of comb to strain, you can crush it with a wooden spoon inside a jar, then fasten your straining material over the top of the jar. Next, invert the whole thing over a similar-sized jar. You can duct tape the two jars together, prop them up so they don’t fall over, and let them sit overnight. In the morning you will have honey in one, sticky comb in the other.

With either method, you can agitate your crushed comb in some cool water and then drain the water and store it in the refrigerator for cooking.

Chunk Honey

You don’t have to prepare all comb honey or all strained honey, you can do some of each or make chunk honey. To make chunk honey, you take a piece of cut comb, fit it into a jar, and fill the remaining space with strained honey. It’s easy and looks kind of awesome.

I have always thought chunk honey was an odd idea—having all that liquid honey on the outside of the comb feels backward to me. But people like to look at it—even I like to look at it—and it makes a popular gift. So why not?

The Clean Up

Now that the processing is done, you have a huge mess in your kitchen. These are my suggestions:

  • After storing the first-rinse water in the fridge, wash the wax a few more times and put it someplace where it will dry thoroughly. When you collect enough, you can melt it down.
  • Return sticky frames to the hives so your bees can clean them up.
  • Clean your strainers and other equipment in cold water so you scrape off the wax. You can also freeze and then scrape. Once the wax is gone, you can wash everything in warm water.
  • Think about how much money you just saved and how much room you still have in your garage or basement.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Related post:

How to crush and strain comb honey

The allure of bigleaf maple honey

Early each spring I’m on the lookout for a frame of bigleaf maple honey. It blooms before the honey supers are in place, so I rifle through the brood boxes, looking for that special treat. In anticipation of this event, I often put an empty frame at the edge of a few brood boxes the previous fall–hope against hope that one might get filled with this magic nectar.

Bigleaf maple is the first honey crop of the season here and it doesn’t happen often. The huge trees bloom while we’re still in the depths of the rainy season, so many years it goes uncollected. Some local beekeepers estimate we get a salable crop of bigleaf maple about one year in eight. Sigh. So very sad.

This spring, at the apex of bloom, I spied one frame in my busiest, sunniest hive. It was in the top brood box, in the number ten position, capped with bright white wax and seething with bees. I gently pried it out, shook it, and replaced it with an empty frame, apologizing profusely to my bees the entire time.

I wrapped my prize in plastic, froze it overnight, and stuck it in a kitchen cupboard. I promptly forgot about it. Busy, busy. I thought about it once or twice, but never touched it all through spring and summer. But last weekend, as I was cleaning out my cupboards, I came across the pristine frame and knew it was time.

Since it was in a brood frame, I had to find and cut the cross wires before I could free the comb from the frame. But once I managed to find them all, the comb fell from the frame with a hearty thud. Honey ran out the sides and pooled on the wax paper. It had the color of champagne and the fragrance of spring.

I divided the comb into thirds and fit each piece into a gleaming glass container. On the way to the sink to wash stickies from my hands, I took a taste.

I stopped in my tracks. Licked my fingers. Licked the knife. Licked the wire cutters. I could not remember honey so good. I recalled the flavor immediately upon tasting it, but it was better somehow, richer, more complex. It was immorally good. Decadent beyond measure. Addictive. I had to sterilize everything after I stopped licking the kitchen.

The next morning I put it a container of it on the breakfast table with no word to my husband. We started eating breakfast when suddenly he said, “Oh my god, what is that?” He, too, remembered the flavor but thought it was better than ever. What is it about a good varietal honey in the comb? What is it about flavors we always remember?

Bigleaf maples (Acer macrophyllum) are huge trees. Large specimens can reach 100 feet tall and 48 inches in diameter. True to their name, the leaves can reach 24 inches wide. Seriously, you can lose your laptop under one leaf. The truly amazing thing, though, is the number of mosses, lichens, and ferns the trees support on their branches. Entire ecosystems exist up there among the protective foliage.

The trees produce small, fragrant, yellow-green flowers in March before the leaves begin to emerge. The flowers are attractive to many pollinators and the resultant seeds attract many small animals and birds. And the honey attracts me. Don’t pass up a chance to try it if you can find it.

Rusty

HoneyBeeSuite.com

Bigleaf maple near the hives.
Bigleaf maple near the hives.