We enjoy the chewing honey comb. Is it edible? Or would it wreak havoc on ones system?
Honey comb can be eaten and swallowed if you wish. It just passes through the system.
Annette
Wax is made up of fatty acid esters and sugar alcohols. Not digestible but not harmful. I like to eat it..... and it does not provide any calories. :-D
If it hurts you, I should have been dead long ago. I have eaten many lbs. of it.
I have not for years, but when I was young we would cut the comb, strain the honey through a nylon stocking, fill a quart jar with the cut comb, and the space around it with honey. we would then serve up the honey in a bowl with the comb and take chunks of the comb with the honey and eat it with our cornbread. You'll want to avoid comb that was previously used for brood.
Thank you all.
My grown son thinks its great and eats it after chewing the honey out of it. I dont want my boy to suffer ill consequences.
Quote from: CapnChkn on September 04, 2011, 01:45:52 AM
You'll want to avoid comb that was previously used for brood.
Why? It seems the little we have harvested our first year has been built over some brood or pollen comb. I DO only save the comb that is clear in color. But some is built high up in color stained cells. Why would that be something to avoid?
If it previously had brood in it there are cocoons in the comb. It won't hurt you, but they aren't so easy to chew and the texture is generally distasteful to people. One set of cocoons is brown. More are darker and darker.
We only harvest honey in new wax. If it's in old wax, we let the bees have it.
Also if you use standard foundation it is thicker. They make thin surplus foundation for honey comb use or just go foundation-less or harvest the comb built in spaces if you have any that aren't bee space correct :-D
Anyway as said the new comb that has not been re-used is softer and more palatable.
Comb honey is the best, whether you swallow the wax or not.
Its all we had as kids and I've been mistrustful of any honey w/out it ever since. So glad its making a comeback.
thomas
Personally. I would not eatcomb honey produced with foundation....nor sell it. The data.out of Penn state should make this rather obvious.
Deknow
Oooooh yeah, got that right deknow. Mine are fondationless so no worry there :)
thomas
Quote from: deknow on September 04, 2011, 04:21:34 PM
Personally. I would not eatcomb honey produced with foundation....nor sell it. The data.out of Penn state should make this rather obvious.
Deknow
Id like to read up on that. Anyone know where I can find the info?
Quote from: deknow on September 04, 2011, 04:21:34 PM
Personally. I would not eatcomb honey produced with foundation....nor sell it. The data.out of Penn state should make this rather obvious.
Deknow
Yes. We only do foundationless. Sometimes I forget that other people use foundation. :-D Do NOT eat foundation wax!
stella; There's been volumes written on foundation contaminants (hope this doesn't open 'another' can of worms).
thomas
OK, Im officially freakin out now.
I use foundation with a coating of beeswax. If the bees make their own comb from scratch on it then how can that be bad? Its not like im eating the foundation. Im just scraping it off of it.
Or is the foundation itself made from some nasty stuff loaded with chemicals that leeches into my virgin comb by simply coming in contact with it?
I sure hope not. Or I might have to start allllllllll over.
Quote from: stella on September 04, 2011, 11:09:24 PM
I use foundation with a coating of beeswax.
You are probably referring to plastic foundation. The foundation mentioned in concern is wax foundation. Bee company's buy rendered wax from beeks and press wax foundation from it. Recent test have shown the chemicals stay in the wax so therefore you may have other folks chemicals they used in their hives in the foundation rendered that you have purchased.
Thank you sc-bee. Yes, mine is plastic foundation. From now on I will order the frames w/o the beeswax coating and possibly I will consider foundationless down the line. Whew!
I learn so much here!
Hello Stella,
Maybe you have to make more mud pies for your son to eat instead ;) Actually, I wouldn't know what concentration of harmful chemicals have been found in wax, but basically you'd have to live on another planet to avoid contaminants completely. Even breathing is dangerous...but, everything in moderation. Your son might just have to limit his intake!
Anyway, I've heard plastic foundation without the wax coating isn't liked so well by the bees. The beek who has a hive here spreads his own wax coat on with a roller. That would be much the same for you as using foundationless wax. You might not avoid chemical contaminants completely, but they would be your contaminants. Or you could cook some meat and vegies for the poor boy :-D
Lone
well, you've got to breath...and given a choice, anyone will leave a tent, or open a car window if someone "contaminates" the air inside.
...but you don't have to eat wax that has high concentrations of fluvalinate and coumaphos (an organophosphate for those keeping score at home)...especially insulting because it was put in the hive...therefore put in the wax by other beekeepers.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009754 (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009754)
deknow
from the study cited above....note PPM not PPB!
QuoteFoundation wax is uniformly contaminated with miticides
Twenty-one wax samples from six different commercial and two private foundation sources were uniformly contaminated with up to 10.1 ppm fluvalinate (mean of 2±0.6 ppm) and up to 14.3 ppm coumaphos (mean of 3.3±1.0 ppm, Table 5)
...i believe that the mrl for coumaphos in food is .1ppm...and you are going to chew on a comb midrib that is avg 14ppm????
deknow
Thanks Deknow, that is a good study.
I see that those two toxins found in nearly every sample are varroa treatments. If you use foundationless and didn't treat with these chemicals you might avoid those particular ones. But when you get down to the crop pesticides, there are some found in about half the samples. Neither Stella nor anyone else could avoid contaminates completely.
QuoteAlmost all wax and pollen samples (98.4%) contained two or more pesticide residues
Even here where there is no varroa or cropping, I'm sure my wax wouldn't be perfectly clean. It would be interesting to compare an australian study though. We'd also have to know the safe doses (mrl I'm guessing) for those other chemicals, and compare with insecticides found on other foods to know which are more dangerous to eat, vegetables or beeswax.
Lone
Ive been changing the trend in my family's diet for the last 4 to 5 years to eat 'cleaner'. That was my original concern with the issue of contaminants in the comb wax and my son thinking that, as I did, that everything from that un-medicated first- ever hive would be good for us. AND, also one of the main reasons Ive involved myself in beekeeping to begin with. Self sustainable.
Lone, I laughed when I read your post about mud pies and meat. Too funny!
I feed my growing boys venison, home grown chicken, beans fresh off the vine, etc. So you know where Im comin from. I never considered mud pies! They would eat them if I put them on the table and ran my nutritional, "your young, go green" rhetoric.
But now your talkin, 'fluvalinate' and 'coumaphos' and stuff like... "(mean of 3.3±1.0 ppm, Table 5)"....basically youve lost me. College degree or not, I cant grasp this.
But Im trying to learn. :-D And I thank you for the input!
First off, you'd need to eat a lot of wax to get to the point where you are consuming a quantity of contaminants that would have a negative effect on you. High ppm, but still low quantity.
If you are scraping off of plastic foundation, by now you've most likely scraped the most highly "contaminated" wax off. And while 13ppm may seem high, you'd still need to eat a lot of that to be dangerous.
And most beeks are nipping bites of cross comb between boxes, and that is all natural.
Eat it and be happy, it won't hurt a thing.
My understanding is that beeswax contains among other things Policosanol which has been shown to be effective in lowering ldl cholesterol and raising hdl cholesterol. Almost as effective as plant sterols and stanols for lowering cholesterol. 2-3 grams per day can lower cholestarol as between 6 and 15% on a case by case basis.
Alfred
Quote from: Scadsobees on September 07, 2011, 09:06:13 AM
First off, you'd need to eat a lot of wax to get to the point where you are consuming a quantity of contaminants that would have a negative effect on you. High ppm, but still low quantity.
That may be true, but how much of these contaminants are bio-accumulated and end up in your fat tissues and liver? What are the cumulative effects of long term exposure? Why would you want to expose yourself to contamination if it could be avoided? It would seem that it is not much of a concern for grown adults, but young children would have a much greater risk of effects. Like exposure to lead or mercury.
I choose not to put contaminated wax foundation in my hives.