It all started three years ago when we began raising honeybees on our family farm in Minnesota. We were captivated by the bees and there was so much to learn. While caring for and observing the bees was fascinating, harvesting the honey always seemed to result in a lot of disturbance to the bees, some wasted honey and a sticky mess to clean up afterward. I am a farm kid and no stranger to work, but I am also an engineer who's always looking to be as efficient as possible.
We loved the unique flavor of our home grown honey and wanted to share it as much as we could. When we started producing comb honey we learned it is the most natural, raw way to eat honey and the most beneficial.
We started SimplKomb to help make beekeeping more enjoyable. We have designed a comb honey production method that takes most of the work and mess away leaving even the backyard apiarist with the highest quality product, raw natural honeycomb. Honeycomb that is already in the package and ready to be enjoyed. SimplKomb is the absolute easiest way to enjoy raw natural honeycomb untouched by human hands.
The traditional method of harvesting cut comb honey requires carefully cutting sections out of capped honey frames, setting them on a rack to drain the edge cells that were broken in the process, then trying somehow to pick up this very fragile piece of comb and get it into a package and put your label on it. All without getting sticky honey on the outside of the package. If you have ever made cut comb you know how difficult it can be.
We thought there had to be a better way. We tried the Hogg Half Comb and Ross Rounds comb honey production systems and while they worked well, they just seemed overly complex and expensive. There were so many parts and springs, and spacers and foundations and tape. All these parts of the system that had to be purchased and assembled and you still had to buy packages to put the comb sections into.
As a farm kid with over three decades of experience in engineering and manufacturing I set out to develop a better way. A method for efficiently making comb honey easy to produce for even new beekeepers with no experience.
We built prototype comb packages and installed them in our hives with some successes and some failures. We made changes, tried again and again, and pretty soon the bees started filling the cassettes with honey and capping them consistently.
By integrating a folding cover into the design of the molded tray we no longer have to keep track of separate comb honey packages and lids like other comb production systems. The lid simply snaps into the open position and fits into the grooves of your medium wooden frame without staples, tape or spacers.
The design has been through seven iterations of prototypes and is ready for production. SimplKomb will come molded in sets of four. Two pieces will be installed in each frame to provide 8 trays that your bees will build comb into and fill with honey.
When the nectar starts flowing things start to fill up fast. This is what a nearly filled and capped SimplKomb frame looks like.
The four sections are perforated for easy separation into individual packages. Just snap the lid closed, add your label and you are done!
Thank you so much for learning about SimplKomb. Please spread the word to your fellow beekeepers so that we can make bring raw natural comb honey to many more people.
Mick Fry - Fry Family Farms