Looking for cut comb guidance

[Browntea]

Folks I'm looking for all the info/advice on selling cut comb! Simples! I fear not!!

 

[davnig]

Folks I'm looking for all the info/advice on selling cut comb! Simples! I fear not!!

use the new style th*rnes crystal cases - very good, and not too bad a price

and don't sell it cheap!

 

[tyke]

Get a comb cutter from one of the suppliers, a lot less messy than using a knife.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Folks I'm looking for all the info/advice on selling cut comb! Simples! I fear not!!

Do you mean selling or producing?

Selling cut-comb is relatively easy, as it more-or-less sells itself - provided it's as premium a product as it should be, and looks like it as well. There aren't many packaging options, and the same labelling regulations apply as for liquid honey (except it has to say "comb honey"), so there's not much advice you can have, except that it's arguably best sold fresh (crystallized comb being a bit too chewy, and any loose liquid is liable to ferment).

The only tips I can think of is that labels need to be placed so as to give the customer a clear a view as possible (and thus minimise stock-mauling), and be in the same place on each box (or it'll look like you're covering up flaws). Have lots of little plastic bags, too, to put the boxes in when you've sold them. Customers will sit on their purchases, but it won't be themselves that they blame. While I'm at it - don't display too much at once (choice increases mauling, relative rarity can be a selling point, and bees can sniff through those boxes), and keep it in the shade, or you'll end up trying to sell mini wax-extractors.

Recently whole-frame packaging has become available, which allows you to sell cut comb without doing any cutting. But, at the prices you have to charge, it can be a slow seller.

Producing is not quite so easy:

1. Don't underestimate the mess. Although cut-comb might seem a cleaner and easier product to make than liquid honey, it is not. You will need a large table, at least four hands (one of which must be kept entirely clear of honey), a lot of newspaper, a draining rack of some sort, a support or tray or jig to rest the frame being cut, and a stock of marigolds or powderless latex/nitrile gloves. You will also need to organise things so the frames don't get passed across your newly-boxed combs, and you've space enough to stack everything up tidily. Other than that, all the usual precautions for extraction apply.

2. Select your combs carefully. Clean, bright combs with complete, dry cappings on both sides are good. Partially-capped, sunken-capped or wax-moth infested combs are not. Nor are bits of wire or comb based on 'standard' foundation - you need to be sure it's 'thin', or foundationless. Don't be afraid of rejecting combs, or part-combs. The price you should get will offset any fussiness, and you've a reputation to preserve.

3. Cut the pieces out carefully. You will need to make clean, straight cuts around the comb, and leave the cut surfaces to drain until they're at least mostly dry. Ideally, no liquid honey should be in the container when packed, though a little is unavoidable. A good kitchen knife makes a perfectly good cutter, and a trimmed comb box makes a cutting template. The fancy cutters are fun, for a few minutes, and a little quicker, but they are also expensive, gum themselves up with impressive ease and aren't so easy to get clean on the hop.

4. Pack them carefully. Whatever you've chosen to pack them in, they'll be plastic boxes made to a price, so check for holes and dents first. They will also be honey-magnets, so close them with your (or someone else's) clean hand and take them clear as soon as they're shut. Sometimes the comb will be too chubby to fit, in which case don't cram the lids on; they have no built-in optimism and won't hold. If you've selected the combs properly, both sides should be identically beautiful, so it shouldn't matter which way up you put them.

5. Weigh the packed boxes to make sure they're at least what they're labelled as (less the weight of the packaging), and don't resent a little over. As with too-chubby comb, too-thin comb can be fed back to bees, used for chunk honey or put in fruit-salads, according to taste.

And that's about it, I think. Except to warn against the temptation to put damaged surfaces face-down in the boxes or make up weight with liquid honey. Such tricks aren't really in the spirit of the game and can provoke both fermentation and condensation, neither of which are pretty.

 

[Browntea]

Mr Grumpy thanks for taking the time to post your reply, very helpfull indeed!

 

[Black Comb]

Also, pop in freezer for 48 hours to kill any wax mother braula.

 

[pargyle]

What a useful post MrGrumpy... all my frames are foundationless and whilst I'm not likely to be harvesting this season, it bodes well for cut comb next year. I've wired my frames horizontally so next year I need to think about where to site the wires in the frames as, at present, they divide my 14 x 12 almost equally into thirds - so the wires would cut across the cut comb sections.