Concrete in the making?

[FreeFall]

I've had my first super of honey this year, about a third of which I've made into cut comb (Manley frames with thin, unwired foundation). The rest I used the crush & strain method to get a few jars. This is currently sat in a settling tank, inside at about 20°C and has been there for four days. The super came off over a week ago.

This morning a filled a jar to see what it looks like and the result is below. The honey in the cut comb still looks clear but this is completely opaque. I think that this hive had only two or three days on OSR before it went over, due to the awful weather. The only thing I know for sure that they foraged apart from that are willow, dandelion and blackthorn.

It's still liquid and tastes great - So as a honey newbie my question is:

Is this looking like it will set rock hard or is the opacity perhaps due to crushing and straining through a double-strainer but not filtering it through anything finer? I tested with a refractometer and water content is 18%. Are there any tests I can do to know whether it's going to be concrete soon? I'd like to get the whole lot in jars but don't want to do this if I should be creaming it. I also don't want the cut comb to set hard either. Ideas/advice welcomed.


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[Finman]

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Too difficult even to me....Fine crystal cut comb? Never heard.

I know how to make grease like honey.

Crush and strain ....huge waist of bee work...Half of yield will lost with that "method".

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[E1M]

Send the jar over, i'll taste it and let you know.
Seriously it looks fine, we just tasted some of ours from a removed frame with drone brood on and that was clear and delicious.

 

[enrico]

It's difficult to tell from the photo. Looks like it may have quite a bit of air in it. Try heating one jar in the microwave or oven, without the lid on, very gently until it goes clear liquid, then allow it to settle again, if you get a scum on the top it has trapped air inside.
Apart from that it looks just like mine goes when it has set after a few weeks. All honey sets except for acacia and fuchsia. The degree it sets to is dependant on heat it's kept at and flowers it is taken from. OSR sets hardest and is much whiter.
Not sure if that answers your question!!!
E

 

[Swarm]

I'd say it looks like natural granulation. I had a batch of early honey last year that looked similar and that was after warming and fine filtering.

 

[Finman]

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I have in Finland 2 main yield plants and they are very different in crystallization.

Rape/canola is my best yield plant.
Fireweed is sometimes better, if it is too hot or dry that rape do not give honey.

Pure fireweed honey does not crystallize. It gives fruit like afte taste to mouth. Rape gives a fat aroma. But pure rape is not much better than sugar.
Fireweed has very mild flaour too.

There are plenty of other plants which give aroma to honey but not much crystallization features. Impossible to know what they are.

Honey dew is in hot summer abundant and its crystallization is very unpredictable.


When I warmed my honey soft before canning, I did not had promlems with final quality. Then I read from internet how to make "fine crystall honey". And things went worse. Reason ist that it is impossible to know how this summer's honey acts.


So back to roots...it went well 30 years.

Only what I will do differently is that I store my yield into 20 kg buckets and not 400 kg barrels. Barrels are good to prehandling and to precrystallization.


Another thing is to get early yield crystallized. My honey hangling room is too warm that crystallization begings. It will happen in old freezers. I put buckets into freezer and keep temp in 12C. Then again heat up to 35 C and into jars and cool again.

With electrict circuit cutter/timer I get the freezer temp to proper level.

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[Skyhook]

Looks like it is going to granulate, so maybe keep most in buckets until you need it.

Cut comb- freeze until needed to prevent granulation.

 

[blackcavebees]

It's difficult to tell from the photo. Looks like it may have quite a bit of air in it. Try heating one jar in the microwave or oven, without the lid on, very gently until it goes clear liquid, then allow it to settle again, if you get a scum on the top it has trapped air inside.
Apart from that it looks just like mine goes when it has set after a few weeks. All honey sets except for acacia and fuchsia. The degree it sets to is dependant on heat it's kept at and flowers it is taken from. OSR sets hardest and is much whiter.
Not sure if that answers your question!!!
E

E - when you say that all honey sets except acacia and fuchsia, I got 8 jars in 2011 from my July nuc, and kept for my own use. On last one now, and still very runny and light coloured (all from capped super frames), would it eventually set (if I wasn't eating it?)
Also I didn't heat it at all just strained twice then through double muslin, September 2011

 

[justme]

E - when you say that all honey sets except acacia and fuchsia, I got 8 jars in 2011 from my July nuc, and kept for my own use. On last one now, and still very runny and light coloured (all from capped super frames), would it eventually set (if I wasn't eating it?)
Also I didn't heat it at all just strained twice then through double muslin, September 2011

Guess its not ling heather? Thats doesnt set, its a jelly type consistency, so i've been told/read.

 

[enrico]

Yep.... I was a bit quick with that declaration! I am prepared to be shot down in flames here but as I understand it honey sets around pollen grains so if you sieve all the pollen out you can prevent or slow the setting. You can also heat it to prevent it setting. I was really just thinking about natural honey before we tamper with it...... And I am still probably wrong.
But....... Most honey will set if left in its natural state. With exceptions, heather indeed being a totally different consistency..... Sorry!

 

[YorkshireBees]

If it has enough OSR, and 2-3 good days forage can be a lot, the it will probably set like rock. Mine set in a bucket after 3-4 days and is rock hard already.
That's no problem for me as after trialing the process of making soft set with it last year I now know what to do again.

My soft set from last year is pretty much the same colour as your jar, some a little paler.
I have no experience or idea about cu comb but any you have in buckets / settling tank I would wait and see but it will probably set hard.

All the above based on my own experience and not definitive!

 

[FreeFall]

Thanks for the info/advice everyone.

I warmed a jar gently to around 40°C - it had a consistency of 2:1 syrup but did not clear completely. I then let it cool slowly and there was no scum on the surface at all, a very 'glassy' appearance, so it doesn't look like air bubbles.

I also put a jar in the fridge overnight to see what would happen to it - this now has a consistency more like creamed honey but it has not set hard.

I'm thinking (hoping) that the mix of OSR and other nectar has just produced a thick honey - It will be used at home or given away to friends/family anyway so not too bothered about complaints!

Nick

 

[oliver90owner]

I was really just thinking about natural honey before we tamper with it

'Honey' from sugar syrup doesn't granulate either. Some on the forum might think their first meagre crop is honey but with all the feed, feed, feed, brigade making loud noises, for some it might just be mainly sugar syrup.

In my first season, I split the 'honey' crop, from two WBCs, between my mentor and myself. In hindsight I felt he had likely got a lot of his winter feed back, as his share. That 'honey' behaved far differently to the crop taken from my two Nationals at the end of the first season. They were at a different location, but that is what I thought had likely happened, when I got to my second season and started to understand what was going on.