Honey I've Been Bad

...and so has Clotilde  and many of her readers judging by the comments left on  this post.  Needing a magazine to read when I was waiting for a ferry recently I picked up an old May 2002 copy of  a Cuisine  magazine in a second hand book store. The cover featured an interesting photo of pots of different honey made to look like a section of honeycomb. Inside was a 4 page spread on a honey tasting conducted by the Cuisine tasting panel.  It discusses the New Zealand honey industry, bees and their job description, the differences between clear and creamed honey and closes with a tasting of 20 different New Zealand honeys.

This interesting passage was in the article.

...and honey purchased in the waxy honeycomb is a wasteful and expensive use of the bee as a resource. Once the honeycomb is built it can be used many times over, as the beekeeper merely extracts the honey from the comb which the bees build up again. Seven kilos of honey can be made in the time it takes to make one kilo of beeswax, and the bees would actually prefer to make honey anyway!

So that explains why it is expensive to buy in this form or as candles. Maybe we should think twice next time we are drawn to honey sold this way. I'd be interested to hear what you think because I love honey in this form.