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Making "Comb Honey" Good or Bad..

37K views 128 replies 30 participants last post by  Michael Palmer 
#1 ·
I am thinking of doing a box of comb honey next season. I was checking out the Rossman Apiaries catalog and the "Ross Rounds" 10 frame is $95.
My question is, is comb honey worth doing? What do they sell for at a farmers market? Also, is this a good or bad thing to be doing? Any advise from someone with experience making comb honey would be appreciated. Any advise on marketing it would also help..
 
#40 ·
By putting a one or two in. starter strip of thin foundation on a comb honey frame and the bees draw the rest to fill the frame with new comb,would that not make 3/4 or 2/3 of none contaminated comb? Then again there are those who say that there are chemical residue in most everything the bees collect? Like DDT,for one, that i've read can stay in the ground for 50 yrs.? I'm not saying that commercial wax foundation does not have chemical residues in it, my thinking is, if a bee digusted it and brought it back to the hive to be processed by other bees and cured out without killing the bee, then it's probably not going to kill me. Not to be argumentative, but most everything we eat and drink these days have some type of chemical residue in it. Also if suppliers are selling foundation that can be harmful to man and getting away with it, someone isn't doing there job. IMHO. Jack
 
#43 ·
Maybe. I can't control the air I breath and I'm not selling it to someone else. The wax I put in my hive, however, I do have control over. I haven't used commercial wax for at least 10 years now. I can't control what the bees bring into the hive either. Perhaps there is no real significance here, but I would like to be more informed based on data. I'm going to contact Maryann Frazier and see if she has any input on this issue.
 
#44 ·
Maybe...I would like to be more informed based on data. I'm going to contact Maryann Frazier and see if she has any input on this issue.
Please do.

I like Mike Palmer's, "splash-of-icewater" countering of a lot of the popular philosophies, but the lack of universally conclusive evidence for either side make it all suspect. Maybe that's Mike's secret - don't believe what you can't see for yourself.

Anyone's got to admit, he's awfully successful for doing so many things "wrong"...

I really value your participation here, Mike. There's always a potential for "groupthink", and we need the different perspectives - particularly the ones backed up be many years of hard-earned experience - to make the most useful collective in a forum like this.

Adam
 
#47 ·
Should we be concerned about the chemicals it takes to make the plastic and glass containers(and lids) that we sell or give our honey away in ??? The bees can answer this for you,put 5 frames of wax coated plastic foundation and 5 frames of wax foundation in the same super and see which one gets drawn out first.Has anyone had their natural drawn comb analyzed and compared to comb drawn from foundation in the same hive? Jack
 
#48 ·
You can do studies but honestly, they would probably never correlate unless you did it in a controlled fashion which makes the study meaningless to me. So many different variables contribute to pesticide build up or lack of build up the only true value with any meaning would be doing analysis of the wax used to make foundation and printing the results out as it's packaged up. Personally I'm leaning towards having my bees draw out supers every year as people want wax as well and therefore I will have honey in new comb to extract except I will use whatever foundation I can buy so maybe it's meaningless anyways.
 
#49 ·
I think we are all in that position where we can only do our best, but there is so much environmental degradation out there, our best is ALL we can do. I applaud Mike's drive for purity: the bees can use the beekeeper's help in returning to a more pure state.

I am trying to find a clean local beeyard or two, ones where the hives will not be too subject to pesticide spraying, which is ubiquitous in the agricultural land all around us. It is a tough search. The blueberry growers need the bees, but how to protect the bees from the frequent spraying in the fields?
 
#51 ·
Part of the "problem" we face today is our ability to detect compounds has exceeded our ability to understand the impact of the results. Ideally, there would be no contaminants in anything we eat. That is not the world we live in.

Another part of the problem is our food safety and availability has improved dramatically over the past century. Where we use to worry about the food we eat killing us "quickly," we now need to worry about the long term effects of what we eat.

"We" need to do the best we can to provide the safest honey, food, we can. We each may make different decisions in how we choose to produce our products we market.

Tom
 
#52 ·
Read the label on half of what we feed our kids for lunch (we did this when we found our grated cheese was cheese food pretty unusual names). Very little of that was meant for human consumption but like Twall said it kills slowly so it is ok. So if our diet includes chemicals that are intended to be in there they are not ‘contaminated’.
 
#55 ·
I'm getting 2 foundationless frames in each deep an each super - puts me at about 10 FL total for the year right now. I think cut comb honey might be doable next year. For this year, it would be cut comb sugar water - my bees came too late for the flow, unfortunately
 
#59 ·
So minimal use of foundation in the production of comb honey OR no starter strip at all will minimize exposure. It won't eliminate it, but itr will minimize it. The only real way to eliminate chemical residue consumption/exposure is to not produce comb honey at all. Produce only liquid honey.

But, what do you do w/ the customer who wants comb honey? How do you handle that? What do you suggest?
 
#64 · (Edited)
So minimal use of foundation in the production of comb honey OR no starter strip at all will minimize exposure.
OR move bees in Switzerland in alpine meadows, where no pesticides etc.
It won't eliminate it, but itr will minimize it.
I think, it is good idea - to minimize the contamination.
The only real way to eliminate chemical residue consumption/exposure is to not produce comb honey at all. Produce only liquid honey.
I do not think so because you still use treatments, etc. You could not claim that your product is contamination free.

But, what do you do w/ the customer who wants comb honey? How do you handle that? What do you suggest?
If demand is strong, it will force you guys to produce what people demanded. This is how market economy suppose to work. Meantime, supporting local small scale treatment-free beekeeping is very important to develop a new disease resistant honey-bees lines and supply customers with local high-quality products they needed. Sergey
 
#67 ·
You forgot the winking smily face. There is nowhere where you can go and not find pesticides. Even on Mt. Everest.
Yes, I could not manage those smiling faces - for some reason, I could not insert them into the text - they jumped to the header...:) -ooops, now it is inserted! As for pesticides, who knows. I am optimistic. Europe is very careful regarding any pollution. You could not find in Europe something like our Central Valley where just smell chemicals... and nothing but ruined land... If you put Mt. Everest in the Central Valley - I am sure it would be impregnated with chemicals... China and India are horrible in regard to pollution. I saw "organic raw honey" in Trader Joe's another day -made in India!

One more thought. Nature has amusing capacity to clean/restore itself. In Soviet Union, we had horrible pollution in the Oka-river. It used to be the river with cleanest water (before USSR). They catch here sturgeon for royal 's table in old days. In USSR - we did not need sturgeon for royal family, since royal family was killed... They build a gigantic factories on the banks of the river and used the river as sewage. During the "perestroika" time when all industry went down and factories were closed, Oka-river cleaned itself within 5 years and now we have sturgeon again! So, it is amusing how nature could heal itself if we do not interfere and do not add more. Thus, even small efforts could make a huge difference! Sergey
 
#61 ·
Since this thread has morphed from comb honey to contaminated foundation the issue of poor quality queens from packaged bees has been linked to contaminated comb in some studies. And no I won't list sources but you can check back issues of the 2 popular bee journals I think Randy Oliver has talked about this.
 
#62 ·
Thanks for the info on foundation getting tested. I assumed thin foundation for cut comb had some requirements but you never know I guess. It still boils down to how contaminated nectar etc.. is the bees are foraging on. You can start out with the cleanest comb possible and it doesn't amount to squat if your bees are foraging chemically laced sources.
 
#63 ·
We had a huge discussion on reclaimed wax contamination in another thread a few month ago. To save time,everyone could search for that thread. It was huge! The bottom line is that beekeepers and their treatment practices are the major source of bee-wax contamination. Recycling wax, contamination is accumulated. Sergey
 
#68 ·
I will wager that those sturgeon have trace elements of pesticides in them too.

"As for pesticides, who knows."? Mary anne Frazier and Pennstate knows. She spoke at a Pollinators and Pesticides Conference at alfred State University, Alfred, NY two years ago and told those there about establishing package bees in hives w/out foundation. Taking samples of comb, since that is where pesticide residue shows up the most, being oil based chemicals they bond w/ oils like beeswax, what was found was chemicals which came in from the environment from as far away as 5 miles away or more.

"Sounds like our environment is generally polluted.", I said. "Yes", she said." There is literally no where you can go and not find pesticides. Primarily from Agriculture and Lawn Maintainence sources. And what beekeepers put into their hives themselves."

Her study even found miticides such as fluvalinate (aka Apistan) which they had not used and isn't really used for much of anything other than Mite control. So where did that come from? May have come w/ the bees themselves.

We may already have them, but we need standards of acceptable levels of pesticide residues in honey and bees wax.
 
#69 ·
That sturgeon, Mark, would have heavy metals contamination primarily, because pollution originally comes mostly from industry (electronic production). But, the trick was that sturgeon is a natural indicator for pollution - it did not live in even slightly contaminated waters. The appearance of sturgeon in the river is an indication that waters in fact are very clean. Sturgeon is more sensitive than all our mass-spectrometers together! Similarly - wild trout. It is living only in literally distilled water from puriest mountain glaciers. If you could find trout in the Mt. Everest high mountain creeks - than, you are not right and area is clean (water at least). I would imagine, there are other living indicators of contamination. Actually, bees were considered to be a living indicator. I afraid, not anymore - they were breed (unintentionally I guess) to sustain pollution (treatment, pesticides etc). Wild, native bees - perhaps, still indicators. Some plants - also indicators. I used to know quite well "russian" indicators. I am not familiar with Americans... I know that tiger lily in CA is very sensitive to pollution, thus - nearly disappeared from the nature... But again, the idea that everything is polluted (I basically agree with this) is counterproductive since open doors for hopeless approach:"everything polluted, why bother? Other pollute, I could pollute too!". I completely disagree with such approach. It is everyone's responsibility to minimize pollution in all ways and do not wait until somebody (magically) would clean up for you. The best approach - "do not pollute, than you don't need to clean up"... Sergey
 
#71 ·
The first step to being able to address ones problems is to recognize the existence of the problem. Do you eat the sturgeon?
Agree, but pollution problem do exists in US for at least 50 years. I feel, it was plenty of time to understand that pollution is bad. Pesticide problem become very pronounced with invention of DDT and "orange agent" (not exactly pesticide, but pollutant) and now we are still trying to "recognize" the problem...

As for sturgeon - yes, but did not tell anybody since it is prohibited to catch it in Oka-river - it will take time to restore the population if new Russian capitalistic approach do not destroy slowly recovered eco-system AGAIN.
Sergey
 
#72 ·
It takes a stronge colony to produce comb honey(enough to sell commercially) say one or two supers of beautiful snow white capped comb honey. Maybe i'm wrong, but with all the steps the bees go through to make the comb and honey (processing it through there bodies) and make enough stored honey and new brood to get them through winter. I feel alot safer eating their product, than the produce i buy from the super market.
 
#73 ·
My instincts say you are correct. While we should always strive for purity in our food supply we would starve to death if we absolutely required it. Today's ultra-sensitive testing is useful only in showing us what is in our foods and not necessarily what might affect our health.
 
#75 ·
In defense of pesticides (if used correctly,read the lable) they have probably saved more lives than they have taken. I say this because by using them we can produce more food for the world, and the resent outbreak of malaria in Africa, where they used DDT to kill the mosquito population causing the problem that was killing hundreds of people.Like it or not, pesticides are here to stay, were just going to have to learn more about them and how to use them.
 
#79 ·
using them we can produce more food for the world Like it or not, pesticides are here to stay, were just going to have to learn more about them and how to use them.
All the money spent on pesticide, herbicide, insecticide, fungicide, miteicide research would be better spent on research on organics. We already know what the effects are from these chemicals. The world can be fed by using organic farming. Rodale has been researching organics since 1947. World starvation is not because of lack of food it’s distribution and over population problem.
 
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