When the sun slants golden through the barren trees and the north wind shivers the browning reeds, I begin thinking of honeycomb. I dream of next year’s harvest, the neatly packed cells oozing to the press of my knife. Nothing brings me closer to my bees than nature’s perfect fast food—preserved, packaged, portion controlled, and […] Read more
So gross! A few days ago, I received a message from a purchaser of honey. She had just acquired her very first sample of honey-in-the-comb from her local farmer’s market. Based on her description, I would say it was “chunk honey,” a piece of comb in a jar surrounded by extracted honey. When she got […] Read more
Far out! I’ve seen pink honey (from candy canes) and red honey (from maraschino cherry juice), but I’ve never seen aqua-green honey until now. Technically, of course, it’s not honey since it wasn’t made from nectar—or at least we don’t think it was made of nectar. Still, it’s a sight to behold. Judy Scher, a […] Read more
This morning a reader pointed out inconsistencies in my website. In one post I wrote, “Freeze honey combs before storing. The USDA recommends 24 hours at 0 degrees F.” In another post I write, “To kill the moth [eggs], you must monitor both time and temperature. For example, the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (MAAREC) […] Read more
For as long as mankind has pursued honey bees, he has been fascinated by the shape of comb cells. Since that first discovery, many types of intelligence have been ascribed to honey bees that might result in their extraordinary ability to build perfect hexagons. If you ever tried to draw a regular hexagon, one with […] Read more
This photo was taken by Mr Meshal Allogmani from Makka, Saudi Arabia. His bees are busy building honeycomb. The first comb in the background looks normal, but the one in front is amazingly different. I think the appearance is due to the wax being extremely transparent, so we are seeing the structure on the other […] Read more
I don’t know how many e-mails I get in a day—my math skills aren’t that good—but I have noticed an increasing number that mention “honey cone.” At first, I thought this was a typo; after all, the letters m and n are neighbors on the qwerty keyboard. But on further thought, b and e are […] Read more