Hi All,
Every year I always produce some comb honey.  I usually sell it in one pound
wide mouth jars with liquid honey poured over top.  Some refer to this as
"chunk honey".  I sell a fair amount at a good price.  I also place a few
pieces in containers to sell as cut comb although they don't sell nearly as
well.  A friend of mine produces about 5000 Ross Rounds every year.  I
usually would buy some from him for resale.  He keeps trying to get me to
produce more comb honey and less extracted.  This year I thought I would try
and I also thought I would share my results.  First of all let me say that I
do not claim to be an expert on comb honey production.  Many of you produce
far more than I ever will, and like everything in beekeeping you learn as
you go and what works for one may not work for someone else.
 
This year, in my area, the honey flow was not great for comb honey.  It
started early, then tended to be off and on throughout the season.  One day
they would be working hard the next there was nothing coming in.
 
There are few different systems on the market for comb honey.  I decided
against the basswood sections because of the all the assembly work.  This
left  cut comb, Ross Round (RR), and Hogg Cassette (HC).  I have already
been producing cut comb and the only thing I do that may be different is I
produce 8 or 9 frames in a 10 frame super.  I install permanent side boards
on the inside of the supers with a 3/8 inch bee space.  This allows the bees
better movement on the side wall and all frames are drawn and filled.  When
using 10 frames the two outside frames don't always get filled.  You can
correct this by just moving these two frames to the center to be finished
but it requires one more trip to the hive.  Although I use both shallow and
medium supers with equal success, in a year like this one the bottom of the
frames were not always filled.  With the mediums you can cut those empty or
uncapped cells out and still have a piece of comb that fills the tall one
pound jar.  This is still a pretty simple way to produce good comb honey.
 
As for the Ross Round and the Hogg Cassette, there were pluses and minuses
to both.  I had actually purchased the HC  in a previous year but did not
get to try it.  I purchased a few more this year along with some RR.  During
the winter the  folks at Betterbee had a GREAT sale on assembled RR supers.
 I hope they repeat it again next year.  The initial cost of both systems
are about the same.  The bees seemed to work both equally well and, in spite
of the season, I have really nice sections from both.  After the initial
purchase the price to refill/reuse RR is about half of the HC.  You only
purchase rings, covers and foundation.  However, it took me about thirty
minutes to refill a RR super.  The HC refill comes complete and installs in
about a minute.  If time is essential or you are paying someone, then HC may
be cost effective.
 
The HC each super yields 40  twelve ounce sections that a cover is placed
over.  The RR super yields 32 eight ounce sections that have two covers .  I
have found that I can charge a slightly higher price for the larger section.
 It doesn't seem the make much difference to the customers at our farm
market.  Most of them have never had comb honey and usually opt for the
least expensive item.
 
One advantage I had with the RR was I was able to take out a few finished
frames early before harvesting the entire crop.  This was important this
year because, I then had a constant supply and did not have to buy any.  If
you produce enough to carry you from harvest to harvest this is not
important.  Individual sections cannot be removed from the HC.
 
While the HC produces more and larger sections per super I found one, IMHO,
major flaw.  If the bees propolize or attach any burr comb to the sections
they are difficult to clean.  The owner of the company suggests scraping the
sections with a dull putty knife.  If you do this you can get most, but not
all, off.  He further suggests that customers should realize that this is
something that was in the hive with the bees and it is almost a selling
point.  This is true if I am doing the selling, but if it is being sold by
someone else or on a store shelf, the customer may touch it and react the
same way as they would to a sticky honey jar.  I have found that most
customers need quite a bite of education when it comes to "products from the
hive".  The RR section is completely sealed  and always feels clean so this
is not an issue.
 
I will continue to make cut comb and have decided to expand and go with Ross
Rounds.  One other reason for this is the owner of the company, Lloyd Spear.
 I have spoken to him and found him to be very helpful in offering
suggestions and management tips.  He contributes to this list often and also
wrote a great article that was published in Bee Culture (May ?  98).  Comb
honey offers challenges in management and other areas, but there two big
advantages.  The supers are always small, easy on the back, and there is no
extracting chores.  You can usually get help packaging comb honey from those
who otherwise run from the extractor.
 
Ron Bogansky
Kutztown, PA