Harvesting - But Granulated Honey In Comb

[Stevie Day]

Hi All,
Hive 2 seemed to have done well this year. 5 Supers with sealed frames of honey. Though this has been dwindling due to low nectar flow & bees moving honey downwards.

My 1st attempt last weekend to clear a few supers of bees failed due lack of space under clearer board. So this time placed a spare super with frames below the clearer board. Despite this lousy weather & with the prospect of ivy flowering soon it was time to get cracking.

I knew extracting honey in cold weather was not got to be easy. But so far I've found that the 1st 6 frames despite being sealed is mainly granulated. To the point that about 25% of the volume was too viscous to extract. So have stopped to seek advise.

How do you deal with or process granulated honey? Is my harvest ruined?

Any advise would be appreciated.

 

[Stevie Day]

In addition,
The only OSR I've noticed this summer in the vacinity of the hives was about a mile & a half on the other side of the village.

Also all frames were sealed & water content I measured from one was 19.6% so on high side.

Is it OSR in this super, which was the 1st super filled so from earlier part of the season?
Or due to high water content of honey being extracted in cool conditions ~19C.

Also why would the bees seal high water content honey?

 

[itma]

Among your options are
1/ controlled meltdown of both comb and wax. The pro kit for this is called an Apimelter. Many bee farmers seem to have them, and those with links to hobbyist associations are usually happy to provide a meltdown service (for a small cost).
Simply melting them yourself is likely to spoil the honey through overheating.
2/ very very gentle and prolonged warming of the combs to just melt the honey, before cooling (to strengthen the wax) and then extracting. However, since you have uncapped the frames, its going to run all over the place as soon as it gets runny again.

Another problem for you to be aware of is that when crystals form (taking sugars out of solution), the remaining liquid's % water increases - this may be the reason for your readings (or it may be even higher in the crystallised cells).

Sadly, the simplest thing to do might probably be to just to feed it back to the bees, and let them reprocess it for winter stores.

 

[Thymallus]

Wax melts at around 65oC so temp needs to be controlled carefully to not overheat the wax and also reliquify the honey in the comb, i.e as ITMA suggests an apimelter will do the job....at £3,600.
A slightly cheaper method is to cut everything out into a bucket, put in warming cabinet at around 40-45oC. Depends on honey but usually 24-48 hours is fine to re-liquify the set honey,. A heather honey or fruit press can then be used to press the liquid honey out.
One tip, buy a fine meshed strainer from a brewing shop and put all the pieces in that. This strains and filters all in one go. If you don't use a mesh the warm wax can extrude through the gaps in the press and is a right bugger to clean off.
Of course you need a warming cabinet and a press.
This method does have the disadvantge of you loosing all the foundation.

 

[Stevie Day]

Thanks for the replies Itma & Thymallus,
The crystallisation causing the water % to rise make sense. So its likely that the bees did find some OSR, the question is to what extent & how much of my harvest it makes up.

Not keen on melting the wax & honey & separating. HMF & pasteurising the honey isn't what I want to produce.

Gently warming the frames to reincorporate the crystals back into solution is a possibility. But this depends on how many frames of honey are crystallised. If just this super then I think best to extract what I can & keep the honey stored separately from the rest of the harvest & feed the lock in stores back to the bees.

Also with any heating method where temperature control is critical. Is to ensure an even temperature profile, which I know from experience even in lab conditions is hard to control.

Food for thought & will make a plan in the morning.

Regards,
Steve

 

[itma]

Just to mention that OSR and Ivy may be the most common modern UK nectars promoting granulation, but they aren't the only ones.

Worth bearing in mind by anyone contemplating investing in a "flow hive".

 

[Erichalfbee]

Last years supers were peppered with granulated cells.
Heaven knows where from

 

[Jimmys Mum]

Last years supers were peppered with granulated cells.
Heaven knows where from

I had some like that this year and suspected raspberry. Much too late to be OSR.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ah.....of course. That just jogged some long buried knowledge, and yes we have raspberries in the veg plot not far from the bees.
I wonder, does it invariably granulate? I remember Finman saying that wild raspberry is a valuable crop for him.