> On 12 Apr 2014, peter wrote:>Comb honey often commands a great premium price compared with liquid bottled honey. It implies quality to consumers since you cannot adulterate comb.<

Not true.  Easy to adulterate comb honey - just remove combs on top bars and hang and hang up for bees to rob honey and take back.  At the same time feed lots of sugar.  You get a greater quantity of adulterated comb honey. The customer cannot check what is in comb honey - they can check colour and viscosity of extracted honey in jars. The robbed out comb can be returned empty to a TBH for refilling, so the wax is not wasted. 

Even unadulterated comb honey is not 'pure'. Try melting a bit over a filter cloth.  You get a sludge left - I think the cappings are wax and pollen residues, the husks after bees have eaten the soft insides. Anyone know if that is the sludge?  

Honey can be extracted quite simply from comb by mashing it and hanging in a filter bag.  The sticky wax left can be picked over by bees who tunnel in and leave fantastic sculptures of clean wax, so nothing is wasted. 

Robin

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