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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..
 
#114 ·
If one melts it in the solar melter with plastic "glass" - UV light is needed to decompose chemicals. Unfortunately, wax itself adsorbs UV and thus slow down the process of decomposition. But, in general, yes, UV and heat should reduce amount of pesticide in the wax at least by 10%. Sergey
 
#113 ·
brooksbeefarm - good for you and your family. I really jealous - I wish to have such life and piece of land for all my bee/gardening/grapes projects! I think your efforts to be more natural are bringing great fruits. It is really, really great! Sergey
 
#116 ·
With the minimal amount of thin foundation (a starter strip) i use, i'm not concerned to much about eating my comb honey. The bees make 90% of new wax to draw the rest of it out, the old days when you set a hive out and the only worry was if it got weak the wax moths would take over, are gone.:rolleyes: I remember the organic days when we would pick potatoe bugs off and tomato worms by hand,and we would get half the peach or apple and the worm got the other half, same with the ear worm on sweet corn. With chemicals we now get all of the above and the worm dies or goes somewhere else:thumbsup:Myself and i'm sure everyone else would love to live in the garden of Eden (i'm thinking it was organic) but man just keeps making things worse by greed and over population. Anyone have an answer.:scratch:
 
#119 ·
.... but man just keeps making things worse by greed and over population...
I do not see how over population directly involved in creating more pollution? Most overpopulated countries are poor and just have no resources to produce nasty chemicals. Until recently, it was very true. Now, with emergency of China and India, my statement has less foundation. But I still do not think that overpopulation directly caused pollution. In case of China and India - pollution directly linked (in my opinion) to industrialization: 1000 years ago the bowl of rice was food for the whole day in China, 20 years ago in China, most rural areas feed on the bowl of rice a day... I have no idea what is going on in China today, but it seems to me, the tendency is that population growth is slowing down and pollution is growing. In my opinion, access to the modern western technology (synthesis of the complex chemicals etc) makes it very appealing to use chemicals to produce the same amount of food but cheaper. Sell it at the market price and get bigger profit. It is called "market economy". Unfortunately, in such simple equation, the damaging long-term effect on environment is not counted. Sergey
 
#117 ·
as Sergey mentioned the wax gets photodegraded by UV light. The unmelted wax in the melter won't get cleansed much, due to its opacity to light, but the melting wax will get the full treatment. Neonic pesticides has a photodegration half life of between 4 hours -15 days depending on conditions so there I'd think with the right setup there would be significant upside beyond Sergey's quoted 10%.

Of course the above only pertains to neonicotinoids, other pesticides would react differently to solar wax melting (or possibly not at all)
 
#118 · (Edited)
...would be significant upside beyond Sergey's quoted 10%...
Since wax itself adsorbs UV, photodegradation reaction will happens only on the surface, which will dramatically reduce the overall efficiency of the process. To be efficient, I would imagine, wax needs to be constantly mixed to expose more chemical on the surface. Chocolate fountain comes in mind - put wax fountain outside in direct sunlight for 15 days and efficiency would be 50% (rough estimate)... but, yes, I agree, that it may be done. Prolonged heating would also degrade some chemicals. The bottom line is that beehive itself is a perfect place to store and accumulate nasty chemicals... Sergey
 
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