I've eaten cut comb from my hives for five years, but the novelty wore off.
I now crush the comb with a cordless drill and chrome paint stirrer in a 5 gallon bucket, poor the mashed honey/wax into another bucket with with bottom holes and a nylon stainer. Overnight the honey drops through the holes, through a cut out lid and into a third bucket with a honey gate. I then let it sit for a few days or week to settle the bubbles, etc to the top and bottle through the gate. Michael Bush and Dennis Murrell provide good info for this. My food grade buckets came from the local Chinese restaurant. The $11 honey gate and $2 nylon strainer was the only expense.
I set the wax and all gear out for the girls to reclaim the residual honey. The buckets get rinsed, dried and set aside for next year and the rest goes through the dishwasher.
My 12 year old son and I just rendered the wax by heating in a galvanized bucket and straining through cotton cheese cloth, We then enjoyed the next couple hours making candles by dipping wicks. I use a $5 thrift store crock pot to make a vat of wax and put a pasta sauce jar in the crock to give us enough height for the candles. Wicks are tied to Popsicle sticks and hung on a scrap wood rack. We dip into the jar and ladle from the crock. When we had enough, the crock was unplugged, let cool and put away for a cold winter day with nothing better to do.
This way is just too easy for me to buy, work and clean a hand crank extracting rig for the few hives I desire to keep.
