Ditch the drizzle: the comb honey comeback is here

Inside: Don’t miss the comb honey comeback. Be sure to make at least a few frames for friends and family. Or make enough for your local farmer’s market.

The kitchen of my youth smelled of lye soap, smoked bacon, and peck baskets of walnuts. A throwback to the 40s, the kitchen had a linoleum floor and a table topped with red-and-white checked oilcloth. (Oh, how I miss the lead in my diet!) In the center sat the perennial must-haves of the day: salt, pepper, a squat vase of pansies, and a glass dish of comb honey.

The kitchen odors were delightful, despite the odd ritual at breakfast. On the counter, next to a fishbowl-shaped cookie jar and a staticky kit-built radio, was a two-slice toaster my grandparents used to burn bread. When smoke curled from the slots, someone would release the lever that raised the toast, carry the pieces to the sink, and scrape the char with a knife.

Once my piece arrived at the table, I slathered it with butter before adding the prize: chunks of magnificent chocolate-brown buckwheat honey. The honey oozed thick and glossy from a waxen comb, releasing a scent reminiscent of molasses, silage, tack rooms, and county fairs. The best things about the Appalachian foothills arose in a single whiff.

Popular purveyors of comb honey

Comb honey graced the table of nearly every family in my tiny hamlet. People purchased it directly from farmers or local grocers and general stores. You could even order comb honey from the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue.

In the 1897 edition, the giant retailer sold only two types of honey. If you wanted cut comb, you could choose Century Rose California honey in one-pound hermetically sealed glass jars (with a piece of comb in every jar). A case of two dozen jars would cost $5.

Otherwise, you could opt for white clover, strained, in one-, two-, or three-pound jars. The one-pound jars were $0.22 each or $2.25/dozen, two-pound jars sold for $0.34 each or $3.50/dozen, and the three-pound jars ran $0.47 each or $4.90 per dozen.¹

The things that change

Because it was ubiquitous, I assumed comb honey would be around forever, just like sugar cookies and pancakes. But I was wrong. Caught up in daily life, I didn’t think much about honey during college and early marriage. Although I worked for an alfalfa breeder, the only time I saw bees was while I weeded endless research plots. (And yes, I have a permanent disdain for anything involving a hoe.)

By the time I was ready to outfit my tiny kitchen with creature comforts, comb honey was gone. I scoured farmer’s markets, specialty shops, roadside stands, and co-ops. The few pieces I found — crystallized inside dusty wrappers — bore egregious prices. I wondered if Americans had lost their minds.

Of course, extracted honey was everywhere, cheap as dirt. So why did comb honey — the ultimate treat — disappear?

The comb honey era

What beekeepers call the “comb honey era” occurred from 1880 to 1915. Historians tell us comb honey became wildly popular after some enterprising beekeepers began extending their harvests with sugar syrup. As a result, consumers wanted a tamper-resistant natural product, so they opted for comb honey instead of the extracted stuff, creating a surge in production. During those years, comb honey was everywhere.

But later, after the implementation of pure food laws in the U.S., extracted honey became more accepted. In addition, extracted honey became substantially cheaper as extractors improved and modern beekeeping techniques favored reusing the waxen honeycombs. Although comb honey has seen several short-term revivals since the early 1900s, overall it quietly slipped away from stores, farm stands, and the American conscience.

By the 1950s, suburban families abandoned comb honey just as they forsook cream-topped milk, hard cider, and wilted dandelion greens. They quickly replaced the unique experience of comb honey with “honey-flavored” breakfast fare, as if honey had only one taste.

First you see it, then you don’t

Decades later, when I couldn’t buy comb honey at any price, I decided to make it myself. Having no interest in extracting honey, saving the bees, or pollinating plants, I approached the project with laser focus. With lots of luck but no training, no mentor, and no fear of failure, I produced dozens of Kelley squares (called sections) in my very first year.

From there, I experimented with Ross Rounds, Eco Bee Boxes, and homemade supers of wooden squares designed and built by a friend. They all worked, so I tried Hogg half-comb cassettes and a Romanov-style super. And when they worked too, I convinced myself I could get bees to build honeycombs in glass jars.

Despite my success, I learned that getting bees to build in little compartments is tricky business. Worse, it requires much beekeeper strategy, like keeping each colony about six minutes from swarming. Lots of bees with lots of nectar and no room to store it will build comb honey anywhere, guaranteed. But it comes at a price.

Because bees are much smarter than we think, learning to read their minds is exhausting. And despite mucho conniving, some swarms get away, dashing our hopes of filling more of those cute little cubicles and making us feel stupid. Losing a mind game to a bee is humiliating.

The sea change

Then, after years of fiddling with little compartments, everything changed for me in one afternoon. I had left some random equipment on a hive stand — the farthest one from my house — and forgot about it until a swarm moved in. The stack was simply a deep brood box on a bottom board with an empty shallow super (no frames) above the brood box. Topping the whole thing was a warped inner cover. That’s it.

The bees had set up house in the brood box and were using the hole in the inner cover as their entrance. But to my surprise, they had repurposed the empty shallow into a bespoke honey super.

Without frames to guide them, the bees made a magnificent waxen sculpture with curves and arches and serpentine connections. Buttresses, vaults, and spires reached into all corners of the box and every cell was brimming with capped honey. When I lifted it from the hive, the super felt heavy, like a sack of concrete.

The swirled maze of beeswax contained the most fragrant comb honey I’d ever eaten. It was soft and ethereal with no chewy foundation, not even starter strips. There were no wax-heavy corners or propolis-reinforced connections. The only attachments were the ones the bees chose, so the ratio of wax to honey was low.

And what had I done to get this perfectly delicious, totally natural, and superbly lovely mass of comb honey? Nothing.

Letting the bees decide

After that day, I never went back to the labor-intensive little boxes, and I stopped keeping my bees on the verge of swarming. I switched to a pared-down comb honey method that doesn’t require special equipment or expertise: It’s so simple that any first-year beekeeper can do it.

Fifteen years ago, you could still buy standard-shaped frames that fit the Kelley comb-honey supers. They were shorter than regular shallow frames, measuring only 4.5 inches high, but they were perfect because you could cut one frame of honey into four square pieces.² I loved the convenience of those Kelley supers because, depending on colony strength, you could choose either the square sections or the plain frames.

So, I ordered oodles of those frames and made the easiest, tastiest, most seductive comb honey ever. I simply topped spring colonies with a queen excluder and a Kelley super containing the standard-shaped frames, each outfitted with a narrow starter strip of thin surplus foundation.

In addition, I drilled a one-inch entrance hole in each honey super so the nectar receivers didn’t need to carry their load through the hive or squeeze themselves through the excluder. As a bonus, this technique keeps pollen-colored footprints from marring the wax cappings.

Quality comb with minimal effort

To make the best quality comb honey, I checked the supers often and removed any fully capped frames. With section boxes, this step was onerous, but with standard-shaped frames, I simply shook the bees from the finished frames, pushed the rest toward the center, and added new frames on the sides.

I froze the newly harvested frames overnight to dispatch any wax moth eggs and larvae. After the combs thawed to room temperature, I cut the comb free of the frame and made three crosscuts with dental floss. Then I let the pieces drip on a cooling rack before packaging.

Once spring nectar flows subsided and comb building slowed down, I removed the comb honey supers, which also removed the upper entrances. In their place, I added standard extracting supers where bees could place their winter stores. Because upper entrances can be a boon in fast times but a detriment in dearth, the timing for using them coincides perfectly with comb honey season.

Why comb honey tastes special

Each cell within a comb of honey differs from its neighbor. An assortment of bees collected the nectar from separate flowers. And even though all the flowers may be fireweed, and all the bees may be sisters (or half-sisters), the plants grew in different soils, each with a unique selection of microbes and nutrients.

The plants received various amounts of water and sun and heat. The bees, although genetically similar, are not genetically identical. Their enzyme levels fluctuate, foraging preferences differ, and even their metabolic processes vary. Each of these variables, and others, change the flavor of honey.

The next day’s harvest may come from disparate flowers, fields, or a new selection of bees. Nothing stays the same, meaning each cell of honey is unique. Each contains a flavor history of the colony’s activity for that day or that hour. Each cell records a unique assemblage of nectars that may never happen again, not exactly. The joy is in tasting the flower record stored in those cells and comparing the flavors in different cells.

Mixing honey conceals the flavors

The easiest and quickest way to conceal those unique flavors is to mix them together. Inside an extractor, the low notes offset the high notes. The ephemeral taste of one delicate nectar gets burdened by a robust and overbearing one. What flows from the container often has the muddy brown flavor of supermarket honey, sometimes with overtones of plastic bear.

As a comparison, imagine taking your box of crayons and melting them in a big pot. Toss in those labeled dandelion, maize, eggplant, Prussian blue, and thistle. And don’t forget magic mint, mulberry, and raw umber. Use all of them. In the end, you get a nondescript brown. The brightness and personality of each color flattens into the mix.

The taste of supermarket honey is equally bland and unexceptional. We instantly recognize the taste, just as we recognize the taste of hamburger meat or noodle soup, but the flavor is not thrilling or memorable. Honey from one jar tastes much like honey from any jar, but honey directly from a comb is an experience, a wonderment, a communion with nature. Each cell contains a unique time capsule of flavor.

Don’t confuse business with pleasure

Am I saying we should never extract honey? Of course not. Separating honey with a centrifugal extractor is a commercial/industrial process designed to efficiently handle large volumes, and it has a vital place in agribusiness. After all, we need tons of extracted honey to make things like breakfast cereal, graham crackers, and baked hams. And don’t forget, it plays an ever-increasing role in the fast-food industry: Honey-glazed entrees and single-serving packets of honey mixed with high-fructose corn syrup make their way into countless restaurants and takeout sacks.

We need these products. But what comes from an extractor has been processed. The honey was handled, mixed, exposed to air, strained, bottled, and sometimes heated, degrading it at every step. Although this product is perfect for processed food where honey is not the main event, it was never meant for the honey connoisseur or the backyard beekeeper with just a few hives.

So far, I have never run a single frame of my honey through an extractor. That’s right. Not one. If I need liquid honey for a recipe or a finicky guest, I simply press some out with a fork. No big deal. When I want to sell honey, I offer it in the comb. I’ve sold out every time, sometimes before extending all four legs of the display table.

Comb honey is in high demand

Many people believe there is no demand for comb honey, but that’s only because people are unfamiliar with it. You can easily create demand by giving away samples. Usually, I prepare a grainy cracker topped with goat cheese and a sliver of honeycomb. People are astonished to learn that honeycomb eaten with other food is not chewy, does not stick to your teeth, and does not encourage spitting. It just slides right down. If I serve one square of comb honey on cheese and crackers to a group, I can sell dozens to first-time buyers.

If you skip this step, the people who fear consuming a waxy glob will walk away. But when they try it with other food, they become hooked. Besides giving samples, I provide a glossy business card with “directions” for eating comb honey printed on the back.³ After that, I can price it how I like. Being both scarce and delicious makes it valuable.

Incredibly, demand has increased lately in certain urban areas where upscale restaurants serve comb honey on the cheese plate. Often considered a luxury item, it commands commensurate prices. And believe me, if wads of beeswax caused the clientele to spit, those toney restaurants would not serve it on a fancy silver platter beside a flute of champagne. No way.

Trust me on this. Just remember one golden rule: Always serve comb honey with food, never, ever by itself.

A common beekeeper objection

Many beekeepers who dismiss comb honey insist that wax combs are too valuable to eat and should be preserved. Yes, combs are valuable and they require lots of bee energy to make. So if value-subtracted honey is your goal, by all means, save those combs.

But on a purely dollars-and-cents basis, if you weigh the beeswax in, say, a Kelley square, and calculate what that beeswax would bring if you rendered and sold it, its street value is negligible. The tiny amount of beeswax in a Kelley square is nearly worthless, but the comb and honey combination is priceless.

Even considering the energy invested in comb-building, the “too-valuable-to-eat” argument remains specious because comb honey isn’t an all-or-nothing decision. If you harvest only one super of comb honey for your family and friends or harvest a couple of supers to sell at a premium, you will not doom your apiary. When selling honey, diversity is a plus.

Today’s price of comb honey

What does comb honey retail for these days? While extracted honey on average, retails for about $0.60 per ounce (In 2023, depending on your region, a 1-pound jar of extracted clover honey brought somewhere around $8-12), comb honey sells for much more. Years ago, I sold 8-ounce rounds for $12 apiece, or about $24 a pound. But now it’s around $2 per ounce or $32 a pound in urban areas. Filled Kelley squares hold about 14 ounces and easily sell for $28 at retail.

As you can see, comb honey pays well, and you don’t need to buy an extractor or mess with extracting, straining, bottling, and cleaning. I came up with the term “value-subtracted honey” after I realized all the work and expense of extracting actually lowered the street value of the crop. Although imported honey causes stiff price competition, those imports seldom, if ever, arrive in a comb.

Saying no for all the wrong reasons

Beekeepers espouse other arguments for not making comb honey. Besides considering it a waste of bee energy, many claim comb honey is more labor intensive and requires more experience and greater skill.

But these arguments are also weak. As I’ve shown, nearly anyone, regardless of their experience, can make comb honey in a simple shallow frame; and a super or two of comb honey will not break the beeswax bank.

A third myth says comb honey doesn’t last as long as extracted honey. I see this argument frequently, but it’s not true. Just so I could say so, I recently opened a comb of honey that was stored in its original Kelley section box on the top shelf of my dusty cupboard for 17 years. It was perfect: still liquid and delicious.

I realize this wouldn’t apply to touchy honey like Canola, which can crystallize before it leaves the field, but a blanket statement that comb honey doesn’t last long is false. Opening the cells allows dust, wax, and other particles to seed the honey, whereas leaving it sealed does not. Bees are much better at storing and preserving honey than we are, so sometimes it’s best to give them the last word.

My suggestion for you

If you are a beekeeper who has never attempted comb honey, please give it a try. If you’ve never eaten comb honey with food, try that too. There is no reason you can’t dedicate at least one super — or even just one frame — to learning what it’s all about.

If we beekeepers could reignite an appetite for comb honey, we would be doing everyone a favor, including ourselves. Just think: Extracted honey is still a long way from $2 per ounce, and more imported honey is on the way.

Rusty
Honey Bee Suite

Notes and references

1. For overworked beekeepers pained from lifting heavy honey supers, the 1897 Sears catalog offered some helpful antidotes. For example, customers could order one-ounce bottles of laudanum (tincture of opium) for ten cents apiece (or 12 for a dollar). The four-ounce bottles were only 29 cents (or 12 for three dollars). If opium wasn’t your thing, you could try Peruvian Wine of Coca (cocaine-infused wine) for $0.95 per bottle. According to the text, “If you wish to accomplish double the amount of work or have to undergo an unusual amount of hardship, always keep a bottle of our Peruvian Wine of Coca near you.”
2. You can also use a regular shallow super and frames. It’s not quite as pretty, but it works and still tastes great.
3. These cards, which I tied to every package of comb honey, were a hit and I’ve been told they endure to this day, stuck to people’s refrigerators or taped into their cookbooks.

About Me

I backed my love of bee science with a bachelor’s degree in Agronomic Crops and a master’s in Environmental Studies. I write extensively about bees, including a current column in American Bee Journal and past columns in Two Million Blossoms and Bee Craft. I’ve endured multiple courses in melittology and made extensive identifications of North American bees for iNaturalist and other organizations. My master beekeeper certificate issued from U Montana. I’m also an English nerd. More here.