Beekeeping/Comb Honey

Honey Comb

Honey Comb, also known as Cut Comb Honey, or Combed Honey, is honey in its most natural state. This honey is encapsulated in its original bee made hexagonal wax container. Once the default method of availability, honey comb has more recently been dismissed with a preference towards Extracted Honey.

As of recently Chunk Honey, which is essentially smaller pieces of comb honey suspended in extracted honey, has been picking up popularity.

Producing Honey Comb

In general combed honey is more difficult to produce successfully than extracted honey. The major reason being that to produce attractive comb honey, bees must be kept in conditions that will likely lead to swarming, and the local honey flow must be long term.

Production Tips

One option for producing honey comb on a small scale, is to consider keeping bees in a top bar hive where all honey produced is by default in comb form. Unlike standard Langstroth hives, top bar hives don’t use foundation which leads to poor production of comb honey.

How To Eat

When faced with comb honey, many consumers unfamiliar with the food are unsure how to eat it. While it is probably not the best honey product for use in tea, comb honey is often used spread over bread, or with anything that may benefit from extra texture. Some connoisseur even choose to eat by the spoonful. Although the wax can be consumed alongside the honey, it is not a good source of nutrients, and will more than likely simply pass through.