Honey from different colonies question

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Brigsy

Drone Bee
Joined
Sep 6, 2015
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Location
Southish
Hive Type
Commercial
Number of Hives
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I suspect this question maybe something only keepers of a few hives may ask but....

I have two supers ready. One on two separate colonies. Do people try and extract separately and not mix the honey? Or mix the two and bottle regardless?

Thanks.
 
I do not bother to keep separate, and not worried about which supers came from which colonies when I put them back, as I ensure all colonies are healthy. I am sure others will do the opposite, especially if they believe one colony has a special, say mono floral honey
 
Separating honey by colony is ideal. The practicalities if you only have a small crop are not..- cleaning, timing,wastage etc.
 
I certainly don't worry and often think that like a good whisky blending adds to the quality. Personal choice I think!!


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Very rarely would I bother. But if you're extracting, do it by super and you may get 30lb from one –-enough to fill a small bucket –-so you can just open the gate and fill it before doing the next one.

Sometimes it is worth doing, but usually it's just a PITA.
 
Thanks. Pretty much what I had guessed. Horses for courses!
 
If you try to contain a full super in the bottom of most hobby extractors the honey will be in the cages and over the bottom of the frames which is a real mess. Also it will make a mess of the bottom bearing.
My small extractor needs draining after 6 frames max.


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I suspect this question maybe something only keepers of a few hives may ask but....

I have two supers ready. One on two separate colonies. Do people try and extract separately and not mix the honey? Or mix the two and bottle regardless?

Thanks.

If the colonies were on different sites it would be interesting to know whether the honey tasted different.
I'm moving towards labelling the honey based on the season it was extracted. So far I've got spring and early summer (June gap) and summer on the labels at the moment with some basic info on the flowers that were around during those periods.
 
The only time I try to keep them separate is if one colony has been on different forage to the others to the extent that their honey is much darker/paler.

It doesn't happen too often mind!
 
I would put all the honey in together unless they have come from different site. Mine always get mixed together when extracting but up to now all the hives have been in the same location, but may have a hive on the Moors later this year so if they produced any honey would possibly keep that separate.
 

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