Fermenting honey

[Bryang]

I have a 30 pound bucket of honey that's fermenting...Anyone want it?....Please move if post is in wrong section.

 

[Poly Hive]

Mead?

PH

 

[Bryang]

Hi PH... Cant be bothered making mead...wont be able to drink it..so its available for anybody to use as they wish..

 

[Eyeman]

I have a 30 pound bucket of honey that's fermenting...Anyone want it?....Please move if post is in wrong section.

Buy a refractometer, mine cost £15 from china.
I check all my honey buckets before they are put into storage and I write the % water on the label along with the season & year.
Any bucket measuring 20% or more water gets put in the warming cabinet with fans going and lid off until its come back down to 19% or less.
Touch wood, I never had a fermented honey bucket yet, and some of mine get stored for several years before getting bottled.
None of my honey comes from the heather, where higher water percentages are acceptable.

 

[Bryang]

Buy a refractometer, mine cost £15 from china.
I check all my honey buckets before they are put into storage and I write the % water on the label along with the season & year.
Any bucket measuring 20% or more water gets put in the warming cabinet with fans going and lid off until its come back down to 19% or less.
Touch wood, I never had a fermented honey bucket yet, and some of mine get stored for several years before getting bottled.
None of my honey comes from the heather, where higher water percentages are acceptable.

Hi I,ve got two refractometers, bought the second because I fogged up the cover plate with the test liquid. I tested the honey after three supers and it was 18%., then extracted another 8 frames approx 3 weeks later (29th Sept), but then failed to test again. The last frames must have been high water content, and/or some of the other frames were also high... I check the meters against each other pre and during extracting using two samples of olive oil from different makers, that I have sampled/recorded and stored. Like you I mark all the buckets with water % etc..

 

[Eyeman]

Hi I,ve got two refractometers, bought the second because I fogged up the cover plate with the test liquid. I tested the honey after three supers and it was 18%., then extracted another 8 frames approx 3 weeks later (29th Sept), but then failed to test again. The last frames must have been high water content, and/or some of the other frames were also high... I check the meters against each other pre and during extracting using two samples of olive oil from different makers, that I have sampled/recorded and stored. Like you I mark all the buckets with water % etc..

I take it you've got those small hand held pocket refractometers?
Have you found they needed re-adjusting when retesting with olive oil?
Mine has been rock steady over the 3 or so years I've had it- I use an olive oil sample as a reference.

 

[protheroe]

Have to recalibrate mine each time I use it

 

[Eyeman]

You can still test it even though it may be setting. I've just got round to testing a bucket I new wasn't ripe and it gone soft set and measured 23.5% water so in the warming cabinet as we speak.
If you've still got it?

 

[Swarm]

Hi I,ve got two refractometers, bought the second because I fogged up the cover plate with the test liquid. I tested the honey after three supers and it was 18%., then extracted another 8 frames approx 3 weeks later (29th Sept), but then failed to test again. The last frames must have been high water content, and/or some of the other frames were also high... I check the meters against each other pre and during extracting using two samples of olive oil from different makers, that I have sampled/recorded and stored. Like you I mark all the buckets with water % etc..

If it was anything like here, there was quite a bit of rain July and August, followed by a bit of a flow in September. I found frames with quite a bit of fresh nectar in them. I gave up on these last few supers by end of September and left them with the bees.

 

[Bryang]

I take it you've got those small hand held pocket refractometers?
Have you found they needed re-adjusting when retesting with olive oil?
Mine has been rock steady over the 3 or so years I've had it- I use an olive oil sample as a reference.

Yes the small ones.They have not needed calibration for the last five years. I experimented with them the first two years I had them to find out the best way to store them. One was kept in my extraction room the other in my storage room.On checking the % of the honey, the meter kept with the honey gave the same reading as when the honey was first tested, the meter from the extraction room always gave a slightly different reading,but if they were both kept in the storage room they both gave the same reading. I have not recalibrated the meters since I first received them.

 

[Bryang]

If it was anything like here, there was quite a bit of rain July and August, followed by a bit of a flow in September. I found frames with quite a bit of fresh nectar in them. I gave up on these last few supers by end of September and left them with the bees.

Same here Steve...possibly wetter hear than down in Tonteg, like you I left most of the "honey" from Sept with the bees, they were working the balsam into October.