# Comb honey production



## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

As one who has many $ on equipment for producing every conceivable type of comb honey styles out there the past 30 years let me give you the goods and the bads. 

The goods:
1. Consumers like them
2. Something different
3. Clean and presentable for sale
4. A product a small beek can do without a million dollar extractor.

The bads:
1. Expensive to set up
2. If the bees fail to fill your scroogled.
3. Lots of work (read time) for the dollars involved.
4. Sales in large volumes at a profit is tough to achieve. 

Ross rounds, Hogg half combs, or bee o pac... I'm personally off the track with them all.

We have switched to straight cut comb for about ten years now. For the $ derived for each pound produced while weighing in the pounds of flesh required I'm not going back to the fancy stuff anytime in the future.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

We put some basswood sections out if conditions are right, which has not happened for quite a few years. Maybe we will get lucky this year.

crazy Roland


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Honey-4-All said:


> We have switched to straight cut comb for about ten years now. For the $ derived for each pound produced while weighing in the pounds of flesh required I'm not going back to the fancy stuff anytime in the future.


Amen


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I guess you have to be crazy to make basswood sections....

Crazy Roland


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I guess you have to be crazy to make basswood sections....

Crazy Roland


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I have a couple hundred basswood sections that I bought from an old beek and probably should try to use them up. That purchase was in 1971. Some say I am a packrat.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Vance G said:


> I have a couple hundred basswood sections that I bought from an old beek and probably should try to use them up. That purchase was in 1971. Some say I am a packrat.


I think I still have some hanging around somewhere also. Acquired them who knows back when..... Haven't tried them for at least 25 years. Tough to do in NorCal. 

I do have to admit that as a beekeeper I am a little impartial from an artistic point of view to these things. The simple design of a bass wood section when filled by the bees to the hilt ( no open cells or very few) displaying glistening row after glistening row of white capped cells has to rank up there in the top ten of "Honey-4-all's wonders of the natural world." 

Holding one close to your eyes is like standing in front of Yosemite Falls, a soaring eagle, a sunset on the beach, or the watching an iceberg floating by an Alaskan cruise ship...... To get a perfect section all the conditions have to intersect like the carbon bonds of a diamond. The Bees, the flow, the right colored nectar, and the skill of the beekeeper. When it happens the art of the bees appears..... 

Makes my heart want to sing........


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

Honey-4-All said:


> I think I still have some hanging around somewhere also. Acquired them who knows back when..... Haven't tried them for at least 25 years. Tough to do in NorCal.
> 
> I do have to admit that as a beekeeper I am a little impartial from an artistic point of view to these things. The simple design of a bass wood section when filled by the bees to the hilt ( no open cells or very few) displaying glistening row after glistening row of white capped cells has to rank up there in the top ten of "Honey-4-all's wonders of the natural world."
> 
> ...


Mine too


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Wow! We have in our midst a beekeeper warrior poet! Nicely nicely said! Everything I feel and more. But I think Roland is right about being crazy to try them.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Vance, If you are serious about trying the RR I have a big pile sitting in the barn and Cargo container which will likely never get used again. If you get to Northern Ca I would loan you a few to try out before you spend you life savings on some. We used to make so many I even invented a motorized device and knife to remove the excess wax from the rings. Gets old twirling thousands by hand when a simple machine can help. They look beautiful when filled but are a little fragile on the consumer end. (sales point in stores from mishandling) 

We quit as mentioned previously. The wholesalers were offering peanuts compared to the price I was getting for straight cut comb so I decided to forgo the pleasure of dealing with low offers and long hours for such a nice product.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

If you run into a Montana beekeeper who could bring back a pallet full for me to pick up at his location, I would buy them from you. But it is not mandatory fun. I do thank you for your kind offer sir. I didn't think they would get shopworn that easily, but I suppose people squeeze peaches that hard too. I know how to handle cut comb, just feeling the need to tinker anyway. Why does honey need to be so sticky?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

And the most wise words of the day;

"and the skill of the beekeeper."

Separates the the newbies from the skilled.

Crazy Roland


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## Dominic (Jul 12, 2013)

For those who have tried these systems, which did you prefer and why?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

does 'straight cut comb' mean using a foundationless frame and cutting the combed honey out of it?


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## Cascade Hunter (Sep 22, 2013)

(Tracking.....as I'm doing cut comb in shallows this year.....)


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

We have try many of these fancy comb honey mess-ups and don't have the $$$ to show for it. On avg. we product 100+ supers of nice white comb honey and make OK $$$. What I find is the year you don't produce comb honey, you will make the most for your $$$. I leave my Dad mess with the comb honey, because it is an art to be able produce it right. I don't have the time to beesit.:scratch:


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

squarepeg said:


> does 'straight cut comb' mean using a foundationless frame and cutting the combed honey out of it?


You can use foundation or starter strips.


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## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

There is a thin "comb" foundation that you can use... I've never ventured into comb honey, maybe one of these days....


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## bevy's honeybees (Apr 21, 2011)

Packrat only if the stuff has no value. In this case, you are storing away treasures.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Add my name to the list of those with stockpiled Rounds supers and supplies in storage for decades. 
Add my name to the list of those who just now do cut comb. 

Our flow is long, slow and weak, similar to my romantic abilities. Rounds are hard to get filled well here due to the slow flow and get more tracked than cut comb. I can make good cut comb with thin foundation or foundationless alternated between drawn combs.


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## KiwiLad (May 18, 2015)

Here's an interesting strategy for producing comb honey from a "medium strength" hive, which, I guess, means one that isn't the crowded boiling-with-bees level that is typically quoted as a pre-requisite: http://www.progalskiy.com/en/produkt/ramki/staty9/

It seems to start with filled shallow supers without sections (or wire). I assume there's either a starter strip or simply a wax bead line. Once the comb honey is cut out and each piece placed inside a section, they're placed directly on the top bars of brood frames for around three days. By then it seems the gaps have been filled, attaching the comb to the section, resuiting in a section looking like it's been filled from scratch.


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