Picking the ants out of the honey
I bought a large jar of honey at Costco, much larger than the small jars of artisanal honey I was buying at my food co-op. I used to store my honey atop the microwave. Never had problems with ants, probably because the artisanal honey was put up in canning jars with tight lids.
The Costco honey came in a cheaper jar that let ants get into the honey, even though the lid was screwed on. They were teeny tiny ants. Thousands of the buggahs!
I washed the outside of the jar and the lid; wiped the inside of the jar with wet paper towels; scraped ants off the top of the honey with a spoon. It seems that no matter how often or carefully I scrape, a few more ants float to the top.
The honey is mostly for baking, so for this batch of struan bread, I decided to consider the ants "extra protein" -- and not inform my roommates that they might be ingesting a few ants. I've moved the honey jar on the kitchen table and plunked it in a bowl of water, so it ought to be safe in the future.
Anyone have any ideas on methods for getting last few ants out of the honey? Without a honey filtration machine?