Capped

[John Hammond]

Does honey have to be capped before extracted?

 

[oliver90owner]

No.

 

[masterBK]

But it does have to fall within legal limits for water content to sell it and you don't want it to ferment.

 

[Erichalfbee]

And if it's OSR you better not wait till it's capped or you'll never get it out.

 

[Thymallus]

And if it's OSR you better not wait till it's capped or you'll never get it out.

I've found that it depends whether your bees are in wood or poly hives. Not a drop has set in my poly hives, presumably because they retain the warmth. I'm extracting some capped rape honey tomorrow (from the poly's) that is still wonderfully liquid. I wish I could have said the same about all my rape honey from the wooden ones. Same apiary, same rape, same strength of colonies (approx) just different types of hives.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Not a drop has set in my poly hives

That's very interesting

 

[Thymallus]

Hopefully a few others will contribute and confirm or disprove this

 

[Tremyfro]

My OSR honey was all liquid and easy to extract...all my hives are poly. The frames were partially capped.

 

[Finman]

I extract only capped frames. I do not take risk of fermenting.

.

 

[Thymallus]

Uncapped spring rape honey (shake test) has between 18-19% water content. It doesn't ferment. You only have summer rape in Finland.which is unlikely to set in your warm summers. The reason it's harvested before capped in the UK is because, in our generally cool springs, it will have set solid by then....except it appears in Poly hives.

 

[Cazza]

If taking honey that is uncapped is good enough for Clive de Bruyn, it's good enough for me. (After a shake and a refractometer check.)

Cazza