Solution

After solving the slitherlink using standard honeycomb rules, one should look at the "horizontal lines" in the slitherlink (as hinted by the task). There are four rows of 8 "honeycomb cells" each. These can be interpretered as binary numbers (think of them like clock pulses), where high means 1, and low means 0. E.g. the first row is 01010101. The hint also suggests that you should go back and forth, which means that the second row should be read from right to left (since you follow the line). You can then translate these binary numbers into the final answer (using ascii), to get the answer ugly.