02.13.36 & 02.15.26
I harvested quite a bit of rich, dark, wild honey from that abandoned cafe removal. I crushed it in the Hive Butler to filter the honey, but because it was such an old colony, they had old comb that was very dark and hard to crush.
Comb is like carpet in the bees' house, and they never take their shoes off lol. Multiple generations of bees will reuse the same comb over and over, causing it to darken over time.
The honey is still fresh, safe, and antimicrobial, so after passing through a few mesh filters, it's free of debris and a lovely dark golden color. It's a bit cooler today, so it's pouring slower than usual, but still moving. I'm excited to weigh it and see how much I got. The flavor is sweet, rich, and complex.
I left the comb and messy buckets out in my truck for the local bees to clean up for me. It rained heavily yesterday and it's a bit cooler and pretty windy today, but I'm sure they'll find their way to the delicious buffet soon enough. Bees will open feed on equipment like this and can have it perfectly clean in an afternoon in the right circumstances.
I'm going to try to render the comb into clean beeswax, too, but I'm not sure how clean the old stuff can get. We'll see!
