This goes back to traditional recipes. If you look up some old mead making recipes from the 18th and 19th century, you'll see that they tell you to mix the water and honey, boil the snot out of it, and skim the stuff during the boil. One of these days I want to do side-by-side one-gallon batches where I boil and skim one and no-boil the other, and see what kind of differences I get.