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
