On Thu, 8 Mar 2001, Allen Dick wrote:
> Economics are driving the honey production and packing industry and our
> product is a poor shadow of what the bees make.  The fact remains that the
> best honey is honey in the comb, and preferrably comb made without
> manufactured foundation.

We uncap with scratchers and separate the cappings from the honey in a
sump with temperature controlled at about 100 deg F. We filter it and
either put it in plastic tubs for sale as granulated honey or in glass
jars for liquid honey. To keep the honey liquid we heat it to 120deg F and
hold it at that temperature for 24 hours.

The color of the liquid honey treated this way is a pale yellow color as
compared to the color of the locally made commercial honey which is a
light amber color. The flavour of the liquid honey is quite different from
the flavour of the unheated granulated honey. It has lost all of its sharp
acidic quality and is really only sweet. The consensus in our house
regarding the commercial product is that we prefer Aunt Jemima or Bee Hive
Golden Corn Syrup.

Another point regarding heating honey (or any food) in plastic containers
was made some time ago by a biochemist who said that heating common
plastic containers to quite low temperatures produced tiny quantities of
compounds similar to human hormones which are effective in incredibly tiny
amounts. She said that she would not heat any plastics containing food at
all.







                                                Best regards

                                                Donald Aitken