Some of you are impatient for the rest of the comb honey series, and you probably think I’ve dropped the ball. But here is the truth: 1. I almost deleted the segment on Hogg Half-Comb Cassettes because I couldn’t find them for sale anywhere. I thought they had disappeared from beedom when, all of a […] Read more
Before I get down to the details of each type of comb honey super, I want to discuss Varroa mites. In Honey in the Comb, Eugene Killion does not write a single word about these irksome creatures. This was not an oversight. In fact, the book was published in 1981, six years before Varroa appeared […] Read more
For many years, Honey in the Comb by Eugene E. Killion was considered the bible of comb honey production. On the flyleaf is a photo of a single brood box topped with eleven section honey supers. The caption states that the hive eventually held fourteen section supers and earned a world record for section honey […] Read more
Always on the lookout for unique ways to use comb honey, I was intrigued to receive this recipe from Richard Lercari, a chef and owner of Culinary Hive Products LLC. Richard wrote: So I promptly purchased all the ingredients and made the salad just as Richard recommended. I made one change due to a food […] Read more
Managing bees for cut comb or chunk honey is relatively simple, but coaxing them into other containers is a different story. Unless a colony is prepared for sections or jars, you will often see a dozen bees examine the supers, indifferent and bored. This can go on all season: you think your colony is not […] Read more
The next step up from cut comb honey is chunk honey . . . or maybe it’s a step down. I’m not sure which it is because, even though I totally get the idea of comb honey, I am mystified by chunk honey. If you are not familiar with the term, chunk honey is simply […] Read more
By far the easiest type of comb honey to produce is called “cut comb.” It requires no special hive equipment nor any special bee-handling techniques. It can be obtained from just about any type of hive and the options for packaging are many. Since the requirements are few, it is the most economical comb honey […] Read more