Remember how I said I put some old, crystallized honey out for the bees to clean out of the jars? I had expected there to be a bit of wax that made it through the strainer, but I was really surprised at how much there was. Take a look at that picture (and the cute little tongue on the girl on jar’s neck). And that’s from just about a quarter of a jar of honey! I think the guy who did my extraction used a metal mesh strainer, which is probably less aggressively filtering. Mike used something more akin to a cheesecloth, so I doubt I’ll see as much in my 2007 batch.
Interestingly, I didn’t see any leftover wax in the tub of crystallized, store bought honey that I put out. I did, however, hear from Jean (late of Beez Neez) who reminded me that it’s a bad idea to put out store bought honey, or even honey from another apiarists hives, for your bees, because honey can carry American Foulbrood bacteria, which can only be killed at temperatures that render the honey less healthy, as well. Oops.
