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How to Get All the Honey Out of the Cappings

Bees build honeycomb to store the high sugar honey in the hive. Bees harvest nectar from flowers and place the nectar into a cell of the honeycomb. They fan the liquid with their wings to evaporate the water. When the honey is thick enough, the bees seal the cell with beeswax to store the honey. Beekeepers cut the plugs off one side of the honeycomb to extract the honey. These plugs, called caps, contain up to 10 percent of the honey harvest. Extracting the honey from the caps adds honey to the harvest and purifies the wax left in the caps.

Things You'll Need

Large plastic bowl
Sieve
Muslin
2-quart saucepan
Metal spoon
Bread pan
Pie pan

Instructions

- 1
  Place the sieve over the bowl. The bowl should be large enough that there is adequate room between the bottom of the sieve and the bottom of the bowl for the honey.
- 2
  Place the caps in the sieve. Cover the sieve and the bowl with the muslin cloth. Bees are attracted to fresh honey. The cloth prevents bees from investigating the caps while they drain. Leave the caps to drain for four hours or until the honey stops dripping from the sieve.
- 3
  Place the caps in a 2-quart saucepan. Cover the caps with water. Heat the water to a light simmer.
- 4
  Skim the melted wax off the top of the water with a metal spoon. Pour the wax into a bread pan. Allow the wax to cool and harden. Beeswax has many household uses from furniture polish to candle making. Some beekeepers use the reclaimed wax to form new frames for their hives. There are companies that melt the wax and shape it into sheets of honeycomb that fit into hive frames. The bees add onto these simple frames made from their native wax.
- 5
  Pour the water with any remaining honey into a pie pan near the hive. The bees drink the nutritious honey-water, leaving stored honey for harvest. This uses all of the honey left in the caps.

Insects & Science