How do I extract this?

[pigletwillie]

Earlier in the summer I added a supper but was called away before adding the frames. Returning two days later and the girls had undertaken a building project on their own and filled it with comb. I left it hoping to get honey comb. Having removed it today I have a solid super filled with lovely honey. I can only cut it out which will destroy the comb.

Can I cut it out and put it in a bain marie or similar to melt the wax off or is there another way?

 

[kazmcc]

Can you not sell it as cut comb? You'd get more for it.

Love your picture btw, not sure I'd be brave enough to let a bee do that, as much as I love them lol

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Earlier in the summer I added a supper but was called away before adding the frames. Returning two days later and the girls had undertaken a building project on their own and filled it with comb. I left it hoping to get honey comb. Having removed it today I have a solid super filled with lovely honey. I can only cut it out which will destroy the comb.

Can I cut it out and put it in a bain marie or similar to melt the wax off or is there another way?

Crush and strain?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

 

[oliver90owner]

Crush and strain ( with a little warmth to speed the separation) is good. The bain marie is much more likely to be involving temperatures at which honey quality is impaired. Melted wax requires temperatures exceeding 60 degrees Celsius - too high for first quality honey.

As a point of info: a super is usually a box containing at least frames (often with drawn comb, but may be with foundation or none). The actual box is a shallow box (most often). Proper nomenclature avoids mis-interpretation and sloppy descriptions, of which many are guilty.

The advantages of frames is in the re-use of the wax by the bees - a huge saving of energy (reflected in gross yield of honey).

 

[enrico]

A lesson learned I think. If you leave a bee any more than a bee space they will build wild comb in it. That is why we use frames with the right spacing to fill a super, that way they are 'forced' to build comb where we want them to and where we can lift it out easily and extract it, the others have suggested the best way to deal with it....me, I would just cut it up, put it into sealed plastic containers and have toast and comb honey until it runs out. It will be the bees own wax and there is nothing better than the wafer thin wax they make rather than the foundation we give them. Enjoy it but remember to put the frames in next year!!
E

 

[Swarm]

Save what comb you can and strain the rest.

 

[pigletwillie]

Oh a huge lesson learnt, but then I have got fabulous comb honey that I would not normally get.

Another lesson learnt is that one can never have too many supers