Tools for Honeycomb Production

Comb honey is the only format that does not go through the honey house. It is not uncapped, not extracted, not filtered and not hot-filled: it is cut and presented. And that changes the whole approach.

What it demands in exchange

• New wax, always. The comb gets eaten, so it has to be built on clean wax from this year. A brood comb with generations behind it is no good even packed with honey.
• Properly ripe honey. No refractometer will save you afterwards: what you pack is what the colony capped. Harvest only fully capped comb.
• A clean flow. The comb is on show, and colour and evenness of building show in it. A short, abundant flow gives a better-looking comb than a long trickle.

The two ways of producing it

With sections — small NICOT®-type frames the bees fill one by one — which give a format ready to sell without cutting. Or in a full frame, cutting into portions afterwards, which gives more volume but demands a clean cut and a presentation that copes with dripping.

Presentation is half the product

Comb does not sell itself: it has to be seen. Clear boxes and APIBOX containers show it and stop it being crushed; compostable Natureflex™ bags (€0.77) are the option for direct sales with less plastic.

All the rest of the packaging is in honey packaging, and the sections to fit in the hive in hive accessories.