Country Enterprise - adding value to your honey; comb, cakes, fudge, mead, beeswax polish, propolis and royal jelly

<P> Honey as it comes from the hive is in liquid form; you can either sell it like this or sell it when it crystallises, as all honey will eventually. The honey can also be sold in honeycombs produced in <HREF=bees7.htm>sections</A>, or you can put slabs of cut honeycomb into a jar with some extra clear honey.</P><P> The sweetness and flavour of honey makes it a saleable product Anything made from honey - cakes, fudge, mead - always retains an essentially wholesome flavour. Beware when sampling your mead; all mead-makers have tales of its potency and most of them are quite true. One way of proving to the public that your product is different - put the recipe on the label!</P><P> Beeswax can be sold to manufacturers of polish and candles or you can make your own polish and candles for sale. </P><P> There are two other items that come in smaller quantities from your hives. One is propolis which is the resinous substance used for cementing within the hive. This is a natural antibiotic and some hive-owners concoct mixtures which apparently have healing powers. </P><P> Finally we come to royal jelly, the food that turned a potential worker-bee into a queen, so powerful that during the five days that the queen was in her larval stage her weight multiplied 1 500 times. This substance has always been the source ot unbelievable claims for rejuvenation and beauty treatments. Although the claims seem incredible, there may, of course, be an element of truth in them. If this is the case, perhaps the best use that can be made of the tiny amounts of royal jelly available is for the beekeeper to consume it himself.</P> <P><A HREF=bees14.htm>the special products of the hive</A></P>