What to do with honeycomb? Ideas from a beekeeper
My husband and I have been keeping bees for about four years, and we worked as professional beekeepers for a year. We adore bees and have a huge appreciation for the effort they put into making honey; it takes more than two million flowers to make half a kilo of honey and each worker bee only makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon in its short lifetime.
I think it's such a shame to see cheap, homogenised liquid honey (often diluted with sugar syrup) on supermarket shelves next to the Vegemite and peanut butter - it gives people the idea that honey is just another easily-produced condiment, not worthy of anything more than a few bucks.
When you've seen the bustling activity inside a healthy hive, though, and watched the bees at work, you understand the true value of honey.
And for me, eating unadulterated honeycomb is eating honey in its most pure form. It doesn't get much better than standing over a hive on a clear spring day, munching on a piece of honeycomb cleaned off the top of a frame (you just have to be careful you don't accidentally eat a bee...)
What to do with honeycomb?
A lot of people, especially those who are accustomed to eating liquid honey, aren't sure what to do with honeycomb. Here, in Australia, honeycomb is usually more expensive than liquid honey too, and for some it just doesn't seem worth it.
Well, I'm here to tell you that honeycomb use is only limited by your imagination. It's an incredible ingredient, especially when you start to delve a little deeper into the subtleties of the different kinds (a post for another day).
So, if you're curious about honeycomb, but don't really know where to start, here are some ideas:
Eat it straight up
Just cut off a chunk and chew! The beeswax is safe to eat (but indigestible, so don't overdo it or you might end up with a stomach ache). If you don't want to eat the wax, just chew until the honey's all gone then spit the wax out. Go slowly and really savour the experience.
If you're really lucky, you might get a bit of 'bee bread', which is mostly made up of fermented pollen and is used to feed the brood.
A simple snack
Try honeycomb spread on a thick slice of sourdough bread with butter - a beautifully simple comfort food.
Delectable desserts
A chunk of honeycomb on top of the following is better than the icing on the cake:
- Good-quality vanilla ice cream (or Greek yoghurt if you'd rather a healthier version)
- A stack of pancakes, along with a squeeze of lemon juice and a dab of butter
- A scone or cupcake, with whipped cream
Add some sweet to your savouries
This may come as a surprise, but honeycomb goes really well with cheese - and I'm no cheese connoisseur, but I'd go as far as to say honeycomb will happily complement just about any type of cheese (I've had it on toasty cheeses with ordinary cheddar, and it was damn good!).
Use honeycomb instead or (or alongside) something like fig paste on a cheese platter. Or maybe a honeycomb and camembert baguette would tickle your tastebuds?
A salad made with the following is one of my personal favourites:
- Rocket
- Walnuts
- Crumbled goat’s cheese
- Small honeycomb chunks
- Dressed with a drizzle of olive oil and high-quality white wine vinegar
We always buy local honey to support to local bees and beekeepers :). I've never had a chance to eat honeycomb though. It looks so tasty!
Buying from locals is definitely the way to go. And if you can get your hands on some, I'd highly recommend trying honeycomb - it is indeed very tasty!
I heard that eating local honey is suppose to help with allergies too. I'll definitely have to ask for some honeycomb next time.
My grandfather kept bees and my grandmother always swore it helped with her allergies - could be just placebo of course, but it can't hurt.
Well, I definitely need to try some soon my allergies have been unusually bad this year. :)
oh, the memories of eating the caps straight off the hot knife, but for the guilt of stealing from the bees it would be flawless. i love the bees. i always used the wax for the usual, candles, wax for sewing thread, and waterproofing my boots, all the uses that grandparents put it to. thank you for this.
So glad it could evoke some fond memories for you. My grandfather kept bees too, I don't remember much except he smoked a pipe and used it to calm the bees instead of a conventional smoker.
I'm an inexperienced beekeeper who has been watching our new bee hive and anxiously worrying through winter when it seemed that there was no activity. At one point I actually was afraid that they had died out however I was reassured on a sunny day to see they where still active and am looking forward to the warmer months before I will attempt to harvest some honeycomb. I must admit I was wondering how I was going to separate the honey from the wax but you've encouraged me to think more about just using it directly. You've also encouraged me to take some photo's so I can make a post on the subject myself. Thanks for you insight.
H Jeza! Bees stop flying below about 8-9 degrees Celsius, or if there's no forage, so perfectly normal to not see any activity during the winter - they're smart and conserve their energy when it's cold and there's not much to eat.
If you do want to separate the honey from the wax without having to purchase an expensive spinner, you can just crush it and put it through a sieve. A lot of honey stays with the wax if you do that and, because it's a terrible thing to waste, you can wash the wax and use the honey water to make mead, then use the beeswax for candles, cosmetics etc. I'll do posts about all that sort of stuff too.
Feel free to ask questions, always happy to help a fellow beekeeper and I'll follow along to see how you go - good luck!
Honeycomb and cheese sounds decadent! Thanks for the tips, @emilyjane!
It's pretty gosh darn good ;)
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