Blending OSR Honey

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

SixFooter

Drone Bee
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
1,876
Reaction score
676
Location
Merseyside
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
12
I had a hive near OSR, but it swarmed before the honey in the super was capped. I'm still waiting for the Queen to mate and for the bees to start processing honey again. Hopefully, I'll end up with a mixture of honey, some of which is OSR, some of which isnt. Can I just extract it all together?
 
I would take a frame early and see what you have, you may not have the problem you think you have!. In my region the combination of late rape and other forrage crops coming in strongly (and a rape / bean overlap) has meant that my spring honey is cloudy from the rape but a definate mixture, sufficient to negate alot of the 'negative' characteristics of rape. About 3 weeks after bottling is still completely fluid and has a nice balanced flavour to boot. You may have the same?

Edit add: just thought of a flaw in this! If they have laid down some honey already and that was rape you could have individual cells that are primarily rape and will set in the comb. I perhaps got what I have in the jar because I extracted the lot (assuming it was rape) and mixed it via extraction rather then the girls doing the job?
 
Last edited:
Helpful!
Thanks.

Sorry sixfooter,if you leave the OSR honey in the comb it will set rock hard.
I would try and get out what you have already and then return the frames for the summer flow.
My thinking is that if you have a large amount of rape honey in the comb you could reck your summer honey as well.

Can you check the water content ? and maybe the pollen content.
 
Not to worry!

I was told by someone who I expected to know a lot about these things that OSR honey doesn't set if you leave it in the hive. The advice was If it's not capped, just leave it and remove it when it is. I didnt think that was correct, going by what I've read on this forum, but I thought I may be confused - I've been confused before!
 
Give a frame or three the flick test, about the same as you would to separate flyers from nurse bees but with one side of the frame facing down towards the hive. If lots of nectar flies out leave them in, if hardly any flies out extract.

Even if you store it in a bucket or jars and it sets solid you can always warm it back up and mix it to make soft set or feed it back later in the year in a feeder.
 
Give a frame or three the flick test, about the same as you would to separate flyers from nurse bees but with one side of the frame facing down towards the hive. If lots of nectar flies out leave them in, if hardly any flies out extract.

Even if you store it in a bucket or jars and it sets solid you can always warm it back up and mix it to make soft set or feed it back later in the year in a feeder.

what is the best way to warm it up? Mine has set solid in the bucket. I am trying to warm it up on a demijohn wine heat mat as i dont have a cabinet.
 
Bees and uncapped honey - as far as I have gathered it is not uncommon for the bees to leave cells uncapped, if there is still space in them for expected further storage. That does not mean they just leave it as nectar - it is reduced in moisture adequately to prevent fermentation, so is almost certainly honey...... unless they are starting to add more to the cells. Yep, always do the 'shake' test where uncapped honey is concerned.

Regards, RAB
 

Latest posts

Back
Top