So, in a lot of mead recipes there's the direction to boil the honey with water and skim off the scum, which sterilizes it a bit and removes impurities. With modern beekeeping methods there's very little in the way of impurities, so this always seemed like a slightly redundant step to me. Until two days ago when I had to clean up a mess I let build up in a hive, and I ended up with almost 2kg of honey, and the associated wax... and a bunch of dead bees in it. Pro tip- bees are busy little creatures, and if you leave a bit of extra space on top for any reason they will build right up into it lickety-split.
In the old skep method all the bees are killed off in one go to gain easy access to the honey and wax without a bunch of angry bees trying to kill you first. Fair enough. But wet bees break down really quickly, and the most popular method was drowning. Capped honey wouldn't be affected by the water, but all the dead bees start to smell if you don't get to them quickly, and that can affect the taste and smell of the honey and wax. Probably hence the boiling and skimming. I expect that there were probably bee legs, eggs, and larvae and such floating around, and nobody wants that in their wine.
The removable frames of the modern method really make life a lot easier. Not to mention the queen excluder screen to keep her out and not laying eggs in the honey super and the one-way bee escape to get them all out before harvest.
Goofing up (and hot weather keeping me away) aside, the modern method of beekeeping is much kinder on the bees. This was definitely a learning experience on a couple of levels.
Thanks to my friend Maya M for both taking this picture and letting me use it.
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