Yes, you eat the wax. It is the question we get more than any other, and it has the short answer. Comb honey is honey still sealed in the wax cells the bees built and capped. The wax is beeswax. It is food. You eat it along with the honey.
Some people chew and swallow. Some chew it like gum and leave the wax behind. Neither is wrong. Murray swallows it.
What comb honey actually is
Every other honey we sell has been spun out of the frame in the extractor. Comb honey never goes near it. We cut the sealed comb straight out of the frame and pack it. Not extracted, not filtered, not heated, not stirred. It is the only honey that reaches you in the state the bees left it in, which is also why there is never much of it.
Those wax cappings are the seal the bees put on when the honey is ready. Biting through them is opening a jar the bees made.
How to cut it
A dry knife, run under a hot tap and wiped, straight down. Do not saw. Cut what you need and leave the rest sealed in the pack. A cold knife drags the wax about and a wet one makes a mess of it.
Eight things to put it on
- A cheese board. Blue, an aged cheddar, a hard sheep's milk. Put a whole piece in the middle of the board and let people cut their own. This is the best thing we know to do with it.
- A hot crumpet. Butter it first. That is the whole trick. Without the butter the honey runs straight through the holes and onto the plate.
- Ricotta on sourdough. Torn comb on top, a pinch of salt. Four ingredients, two minutes.
- Pavlova. Comb on top instead of a drizzle. It is the Christmas one.
- Pears or figs, with walnuts. The fruit does the work.
- Porridge or thick yoghurt. The wax softens in the heat and the honey runs out through it.
- Prosciutto or pancetta. Salt against sweet. People do not expect this one.
- Off a spoon, standing at the open fridge. Not a recipe. Still the most common one.
Where to keep it
The cupboard, not the fridge. Cold makes the wax hard and brittle and flattens the flavour. Sealed, in the cupboard, it keeps for a long time.
The one thing not to do
Do not melt it. Heat splits the comb into liquid honey and a raft of wax, so you have turned the most expensive honey we sell into the cheapest, and made some washing up. Same with stirring it into a hot drink: the wax will not dissolve, it will sit on top.
If you want honey for the pan, use honey.
If it looks grainy
The honey inside the cells can candy, the same as honey in a bottle. It has not gone off. We do not heat our honey, so it sets in its own time. In the comb it just means a slightly different chew.
Our comb honey is cut from the frame at Peak Crossing and packed in a clear 150g pack. There is never a lot of it, and it goes first at Christmas.
Honey is not suitable for babies under 12 months.