Harvesting Honey & OSR

[BeeJuice]

I've got a couple of supers where the honey has been capped - and a couple of supers where the honey has mostly been capped and in among those some frames which have uncapped honey.

I've read that if you shake the uncapped frames and nothing comes out then it is honey - if it comes out it is still nectar and needs more time for the bees to reduce its water volume.

So would it be Okay to harvest the uncapped frames now whilst I'm taking the honey from the capped frames? Has anyone got advice or experience of this?

I'd be happy for the bees to finish their work and wait until the honey is all capped but the main nectar source round here has been OSR so far this year. There's bound to be other flower sources in there but with 40 acres of OSR within a mile and a half I think I'm right to assume it is mostly OSR.

I've heard OSR honey goes rock hard pretty quickly - can anyone say how quickly? Is it better to harvest now if it passes the shake test or leave it (and possibly risk it setting solid in the frames)

Many thanks

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

if it passes the shake test, go for it.

 

[Millet]

I bought one of these not that i have had chance to use it, i did however try it on some shop bought honey and it read 18% so my guess is it is accurate enough.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141093567059?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

[sbisme]

I removed three supers last weekend of fully capped, half capped an none capped.
The uncapped passed the shake test and after extraction it all came in at 18 on my refractometer

 

[snelgrove]

If nothing shakes out extract it, if you wait for it all to be capped you run the risk of granulatedcombs. Once it's off the hive extract immediately I had super this year that went rock hard in a bucket in two days.

 

[BeeJuice]

Very helpful, thank you