Got honeycomb... now what?

[Loope]

We have a building at the family farm that has had a colony of bees in the wall for about 30 years.  They have been a healthy, constant constant colony until this spring... no bees this spring   We saw some other bees coming in and realized they were taking the honey.  Since we have had these bees for 30 years, decided that we needed to at least get some of the rewards rather than letting other bees have it.  So we started pulling off the siding and got lots and lot of comb and a little bit with honey.

Now what do I do?  Much of the honey seems old and gelled and isn't flowing well.  Without an extractor or other tools how do I get the honey?  Tried scraping the caps off, but a lot of it won't flow.  I put a small piece in the microwave and started getting honey.  But is there a better way?

What about the empty comb?  I am going to melt down the clean white wax, but what should I do with the dark black pieces?  Do you melt it as is?, wash it then melt it? boil it and skim off the wax?  What is the yellow stuff in some of the cells... is this pollen?

Thanks,

Michael

[Outbackbob48]

Loope , when I was a kid my dad cut a tree in march and it split open and was full of honey and bees, It was pretty cold and the bees were pretty dormant, we gathered a wash tub full of honey and comb, remember Dad putting it in a pillow case and getting it inside where it was warm and just kept squeezing it thru the cloth, doesn't look like you got much honey the ones capped off, the yellow ones are I believe something they call propropelis or brood feed and building materials I'm  quessing. They say honey will last for hundreds of yrs., if the bees don't swarm and steel it all Later in the day when it warmed up we had quite a few confused bees in the garage   As I recall I was probably 12 yrs old or so and that March there surly wasn't anything sweeter than a choice of fresh maple syrup or honey to top off Ma's homemade pancakes. Thanks for takin me back to that long ago March(55 yrs. ago). About that wax, us kids chewed on every pc to get every morsel of honey, there was 6 of us so it didn't last long, Then Bob Dylan came along and said "Times they are a Changin". Bob

[Eric Krewson]

We had 3 or 4 hives when I was a kid.

My mother would crush the comb in this type of colander and let it drip into a pan. Seem like it took about a week to extract all the honey.

[Loope]

I am realizing that we should have started this as soon as we realized the bees were gone.  Probably would have gotten mountains of honey.  Other bees have been robbing this for weeks now.

I've been crushing the capped comb and getting some honey, but will get mostly wax.

[DC]

Wax is good. You'll never have to buy string wax again

[Loope]

Should be no shortage of wax... I got three kitchen trash bags of empty comb and there is still a few more feet of empty comb left in the building that we didn't get to yet.

[Zuma]

I think making a salvage of any resourse is admireable
I wish you well and hope you will keep us posted as to
your progress.
Zuma

[stickbender]

     If that is propolis, get it, and eat it, it is very healthy for you.  It fights infections, and such.

                                    Wayne

[Ranasp]

I found this article a while ago about how this person extracted honey from wax and cleaned up the wax at the same time: https://snapguide.com/guides/clean-and-render-beeswax/  I would probably use a double boiler though as an extra safety measure for not boiling the honey/keeping the wax away from flames. 

[Hummingbird Point]

Go to the hardware store.  Buy paint filters, which are basically bags made of fine mesh.  Put the crushed up comb in the mesh bag and hang over a bucket in a warm spot.

Melt wax in a double boiler.  Filter through an old sweat shirt, old sweat pants type material into those cheappy plastic storage containers like you get at the grocery store for leftovers.  When the wax sets up any remaining honey will be on the bottom.  The plastic container is flexible enough to allow you to break the cake of wax free and remove it for later use.  Be careful melting wax, it can be very dangerous, hence the double boiler.

keith

[JW_Halverson]

Hate to break it to you, but all that black comb is NOT WAX.  As bees use comb, and in particular, brood comb where they raise the larvae, the wax is slowly mixed with waste products until there is virtually NO wax and all bee poo.

What you want is the palest comb, the newest of it.

Go to the hardware store.  Buy paint filters, which are basically bags made of fine mesh.  Put the crushed up comb in the mesh bag and hang over a bucket in a warm spot.
keith

And if you can get 90 degree temps, so much the better!

[crooketarrow]

   That black wax is called cappings. The wax thats old. Bee's no longer use it still wax holds it togethe.  It will be scouped out as you melt it down.

  I grew up with bees,granddady all ways had 10,15 hives. This simple I've did it it at least 25 times or in voled in it as a kid into my teens.

  You need a pot in later years I used a crock pot it's cleaner.

  Cheesecloth for straining. Break up your hive and capping into 2 to 4 inch squares.

  Fill the pot to covers the hives peices. Melt down strain through cheese cloth. scoupe out as much dark as you can.
.
 Let harden pour water off.

  Remelt scoupe out the dark is waste. Strain again

  It point all the waste is gone (95%)

  BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT if you still see some waste. Then remelt again scopd
  and. I looks like peanut butter  SHOULD LOOK LIKE THAT AFTER THE SECOND REMELTING.

  NOT HARD, Time coming, and messie. I got to where always did it in two melting.

  If you really want to look and smouth like peanut butter. Melt it a third time.



 


   

[Loope]

I got a little over 3 pints of honey!  I have had better honey, but this is not too bad... I think the robber bees from other hives got all the really good stuff before we tore into it.

I have been cooking down the wax, one pot at a time.  I put most of the really clean white comb into trays and melted down and it looks great.  The black brood comb went into a camping pot with water, simmered for a little over an hour, and then strained through cheesecloth into a 2 gallon plastic bucket.  I squeezed out what wax I could from the cheesecloth, and then tied it together and dunked into boiling water to try to get more wax out, squeezed again and poured this water into the plastic bucket as well.  This second squeezing gain another decent amount of wax.  Each pot full of comb is yielding a nice disk of wax about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick.

The white comb is giving nice looking wax, while the brood comb is giving me a dark orange wax.  Once I have finished the comb, I will remelt the disks and strain again.  Right now about 2/3 of the way through with the comb that I got.

[DC]

Nope, you won't ever have to buy string wax .

[Loope]

Here are my rewards   About 3 pints of honey and lots of wax.

The dark brood comb gave a little wax and lots of trash.  As a comparison, the thicker disks on the top of the stack were mostly the light tan comb... these two disks each had probably a little less than a cup of trash in the cheesecloth strainer.  The thin disks came from the black comb and each of these probably had a quart of trash in the cheesecloth.

Next I am going to put a bunch of disks together in a pot of clean water, melt and simmer, then strain through t-shirt material to try to clean them up some more.