Only the very best frames of honey are selected for Full Comb, Cut Comb and Cut Comb in Honey (also known as chunk honey).
Occasionally we are asked why these products cost more than straight honey, with questions like "Surely it's less work as you just need to take it out the hive?". Its really not that simple. Here is why this is a premium product...
To produce quality comb honey, firstly the colony of bees need to be very strong, this means they need careful management from autumn through to around the start of july. In February they need additional protein and food to encourage rapid build up in spring so that when the summer comes they have roughly 60,000 bees in the colony. Not having enough bees will mean that they cant draw the comb and fill it quickly enough.
Bees produce wax from their wax glands. To produce wax the bees need to be a certain age, so many bees in the hive cannot produce it, hence why we need lots of them. In addition they need lots of nectar coming in. It takes approximately 6lb of honey consumed for the bees to produce 1lb of wax. So the production of comb which is then removed rather than reused is costly. In addition in the UK the conditions required to bring in enough nectar only happen between July and early August. Bad weather during that period mean they cant produce it and any investment is lost.
When we harvest the frames they are then sorted. Where the bees have built and filled a perfect frame, they are used for Full Comb. On avg this is less than 1 in 10 frames. Each frame with foundation of wax costs around £2 when we put them in the hive. So we are investing approx £20 per frame of Full Comb, but that doesnt include packaging which costs around £6 per frame, and the cost of feeding and protein to build them up which adds about £2 per Full Comb frame produced.
An avg of 3lb of honey is in each Full frame of comb honey, worth about £21 for the honey alone.
So the real cost (excluding time) of a single frame of Full Comb is approximately £49.
We sell these at between £40 and £55 depending on weight so as you will see there is very little profit (if any).
Bee Farming runs on very tight margins, but it's a passion.
We still have a few Full Comb frames left if anyone is interested.
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