Dilution of honey to feed back to bees

[Erichalfbee]

Can anybody here please help this dumb blonde mathematician?
I have a small amount of thymol contaminated honey. I thought I might feed it to my new swarm if there is a June dearth.
It's 16% water and I have 5 litres. How do I make that 50% or am I probably fussing over nowt and it doesn't really matter if I just approximate?

Cheers.

 

[Little John]

I'm not even going to attempt the maths ...

All I'll say is that I've fed back hardset-OSR honey which I've warmed, to which I've then added 25% - or maybe 50% (yes, I'm careful like that ...) of 2:1 syrup - so that it wouldn't crystallise - and they scoffed the lot and parked it in their combs as winter stores without any problems at all.
Greedy little tykes ...
LJ

 

[MJBee]

Adding 3 ltrs of water will produce 380 parts water to 420 parts honey which is close enough. You could feed it neat - think how quickly bees can rob out a forgotten frame left in the open.

Watch out for robbing though.

 

[Ben90]

16% is equivalent to 160ml of water per litre. So adding 840ml of water per litre will give you 50% water.

 

[jd101k2000]

You have 5 litres that is 16% water that means 0.8 is water 16% x 5. So 4.2 litres is not water. To make it 50% water you want equal parts water and 'not water' total 2 x 4.2 which is 8.4. Now take away 5 litres. That's 3.4 litres. You need to add 3.4 litres of water.

 

[Skyhook]

:am I probably fussing over nowt and it doesn't really matter if I just approximate?

Cheers.

That one.

 

[user 6228]

I suggest you check whether moisture content is by weight in this context 5L Honey <> 5Kg
5L of honey is nearer 7Kg
and whether the difference is significant to your application.

 

[Heather]

I just chuck some hot water on, whisk till mixed and give. Looks about 30 honey/70 water... They have taken it down, no side effects. Sod the maths!

 

[alanf]

I suggest you check whether moisture content is by weight in this context 5L Honey <> 5Kg. 5L of honey is nearer 7Kg and whether the difference is significant to your application.

Agree with that. 5 litres of honey would be about 6.8 kg of honey which at 16% water would be 84% solids or 5.7 kg of sugars.

If you wanted to end up with 1:1 (ratio of one litre of sugar to one litre of water) you already have 0.9 litres of water and 5.7 of sugar. So add 4.8 litres of water to your 5 litres of honey. A practical approximation would be adding water to honey in about equal volumes.

 

[alanf]

I suggest you check whether moisture content is by weight in this context 5L Honey <> 5Kg. 5L of honey is nearer 7Kg and whether the difference is significant to your application.

Agree with that. 5 litres of honey would be about 6.8 kg of honey which at 16% water would be 84% solids or 5.7 kg of sugars.

If you wanted to end up with 1:1 (ratio of one kg of sugar to one litre of water) you already have 0.9 litres of water and 5.7 kg of sugar. So add 4.8 litres of water to your 5 litres of honey. A practical approximation would be adding water to honey in about equal volumes.