Stainless steel uncapping knife with 305 mm straight blade

01 · 305 MM IS THE FRAME'S HEIGHT

There is a reason for the size

A Dadant brood frame is 300 mm tall and a Langstroth 232. With a 305 mm blade both uncap in one continuous pass, which is how clean cappings come off.

The 465 mm overall with the handle is what lets you push upwards with both hands without your knuckles touching the frame.

02 · THE BARS ARE YOUR GUIDE

How to cut without wrecking the comb

The frame goes on edge on the uncapping bench or tray, and the blade rests on the side bars and runs between them with a sawing motion, from the bottom up.

Those bars are the reference that keeps the blade level with the comb. Cutting freehand, with nothing to rest on, is what opens too many cells and leaves the frame bleeding honey.

03 · HOT WATER, NOT FLAME

The old trick and its limit

With cold honey the cappings drag instead of cutting. The time-honoured answer is a bucket of hot water beside you and a dip of the blade between frames: the wax gives and the cut comes off clean.

What you do not do is heat it over a flame or overdo the temperature. Heat raises the HMF of the honey, the marker that gives away a heated honey — and here the point is only to soften the wax, not to warm the honey.

04 · THE EDGE IS ON ONE SIDE

And the maintenance it asks for

This knife carries a right-hand edge: it is not symmetrical, so one face cuts and the other does not. Worth knowing before your hand gets used to it.

Stainless steel holds up well, but honey is acidic: at the end of the day it gets rinsed and dried. And if the edge needs touching up, you want a smooth cut with no burr — a burr tears the comb instead of slicing it.

The cappings that fall have honey in them: drain or press them before melting the wax.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is the knife: