MrB's 2014 Dandelion Honey

Angie popped over to MrB as she had asked him for some natural honeycomb for a work colleague who originates from the Balkans where they particularly enjoy it.

As one puts a chunk of the comb in the mouth and then "sucks" out the honey, one uses completely empty comb frames and let the bees build the whole honeycomb themselves. Normally one buys preformed sheets of wax imbossed with the honeycomb which simply speeds up the process and makes the bees fill the entire frame. On the empty frame they build from top to bottom in a sort of heart shaped form. These pre-formed sheets are made from recycled bees wax and should be free of any contamination but the free form type ensures one knows exactly where the wax came from.

Bees need to eat 8 kg of honey to produce 1 kg of wax and so one tries to recycle as much wax as possible. By carefully removing the "lids" on the combs before harvesting one can preserve much of the comb and put it back in the hive for the bees to reuse. The wax from the lids can then be melted and used as candle wax or sold to the makers of the pre formed sheets. If one has enough of one's own wx, it is possible to get pre-formed sheets made for you from only your wax.

MrB gave Angie a jar of his first 2014 Dandelion Honey, on the Blip on the left - in comparison an autumn 2013 jar of Honeydew Honey known here as Forest Honey. Below two sections of natural honeycomb. The upper one shows quite a few cells sealed with a cream coloured lid of wax. The upper one weighs about 300 g the lower 200 g.