This year I cut it; drained it; put the draining rack and honey into the freezer overnight; removed the draining rack and honey from the freezer and thawed them; and THEN boxed it. This year's honey doesn't have liquid honey oozing out the bottom.
Below you can see the difference in 2008 honey on the left and 2007 honey on the right.
Here are six dry packed boxes of cut comb honey. The honey is earlier honey than last year and is lighter. Last year I made cut comb from the dark honey made by my bees in July.
Here's a close-up of the ooze from last year's thaw post the overnight in the freezer.
Here are my last two boxes from 2007 stacked up against the lighter boxed honey from 2008. You can really see the difference.
Beekeeping is all about learning new things every year.
Beautiful! The difference in color is so interesting. It looks great in these plastic containers.
ReplyDeleteJust today I worked on frames for my honey supers ~ I'm in Anchorage, Alaska & getting ready to put the supers on so I really appreciate all your expertise!
Thanks for sharing! Tam
Your comb looks thicker than what I have gotten. How many frames are you putting in a box?
ReplyDeleteThese combs came out of 10 frames boxes with 10 frames in the box. I haven't harvested from any of my 8 frame box hives yet.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it should make a difference in thickness of comb but FWIW the 2008 comb came from medium boxes. The 2007 was in shallow boxes.
ReplyDeleteLinda, just found your blog today, and it is a treasure trove of information. Thank-you for your work and detailed posts. You may have addressed this following question, and I will try to find it on the blog. I'm wondering how you are getting the bees to keep the comb so nicely in the frames if there is no foundation? I'd like to do this on my hives, too. Do you have to alternate foundation-less frames w/ foundationed frames, to "force" them to keep things in order? Thanks again, Shane.
ReplyDeleteHi Linda,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that when you used the brushy mountain comb honey boxes they didn't close tightly. Have you found a favorite comb honey box? Dadant has them for a good pribe, so I wonder if you've tried theirs.