When going foundationless, do you place anything in the frames to help guide the bees?
I just buy wedge top bars and nail the wedge in sideways.
https://www.honeybeesuite.com/how-to-make-starter-strips/wedge-turned-sideways/In blind taste tests people could not tell honey from dark comb from honey in new comb.
I don't know about "people"
, but I could definitely taste this flavor in a blind taste test. I have often wondered though if you were extracting from dark comb if you wouldn't taste it. Whereas with crush and strain, I end up with far more little microscopic bits of wax in the honey, which imparts more of the wax's flavor to the end product.
It's funny about the blind taste tests to me, and most people preferring the new comb. I've never cared for honey in the comb. The waxiness isn't pleasant to me.
The only time I ever tasted dark comb was after getting it from a cut-out. It was mostly uncapped honey but had a fair amount of bee bread in it. It hardly seemed waxy at all to me and was much more tolerable. I attributed it to the bee bread and whatever substances mixed with the wax that made it dark, breaking up the waxiness.
I'm not squeamish about such things though, and also tried some stray larvae. They were not objectionable either. To be honest, I'm not that wild about honey, far prefer real maple syrup, and don't like ribbon cane syrup at all. Except for the pastiness, I think the bee bread is the best tasting thing in the hive.
I have two questions. Firstly, are you basing your opinion of honey on real honey from a beekeeper? Because anything off a store shelf is barely honey in my opinion. There are so many flavors and varieties of honey that I can't imagine not being able to find one that you love. Secondly, have you ever had really high quality comb honey? When we talk about eating comb honey, we aren't really talking about what you are describing here. Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that you just took a hunk of comb out of the hive and ate it regardless of what was in it,
since that's certainly a legitimate culinary option, but high quality comb honey is going to be extremely thin fast-drawn white wax that will basically dissolve in your mouth. I feel like if your impression of comb honey is "waxy", then either you are very sensitive to the wax or the comb honey you had wasn't the best.