I lost all sixteen of my hives over the winter. (Discussed in a previous thread) I have so much honey, it's crazy! Maybe 300lbs or so. (I don't feed sugar so I always leave extra honey. This year all this honey unexpectedly bit me in the butt.) Some of it is real pretty so I'm cutting it to sell as cut comb. But over half is crystallized , so I had an idea that seems to be working:
I was given 30 or 40 one gallon food buckets by my cousin in the restaurant business. In 4 of them, I drilled three or four holes on the sides just above the bottom. I placed crushed comb - crystallized, liquid, everything - into these buckets and placed them on the edge of my worktable. A waterbed heater is under these buckets. Honey melts and goes to the bottom, out the holes, drips into filtered buckets on the floor below.
I just started this process but when most of the honey is drained, I plan on putting this warm "mash" into my wine press to get the remaining honey out.
I'd imagine the same thing can be done with cappings.
But someone else on this forum gave me an idea that I'm DEFINITEY going to try: Stack up the boxes with crystallized honey on top of a couple of empty boxes. Before you do, place a light bulb on the floor inside the empty boxes. Hopefully, this will heat and liquify the honey enough to put into the press. It seems that this light bulb idea can be adapted for any situation you can think of.
I'm going to try this as soon as I can!