Hurry, Hurry: beware delaying extraction because uncapped.

[Amari]

4 of my 6 hives have been bringing in honey over the last month, probably mainly OSR although this is 800m instant. Horse chestnut and hawthorn are closer. I have delayed extracting because much of it remained partially or all uncapped. Today extracted mine and local newbee's and immediately noticed how viscous it was. Plucked up courage to deploy my newly purchased spectrometer (I am often slow to tryout anything new) and even the uncapped honey was showing 15% water i.e. amply ripe (ripe = less than 19%).
Some showed early crystallisation in the comb and the approx 110lbs yield less than I would have expected from 6 boxes.
Memo to self: use spectrometer in the apiary next time to avoid leaving honey on the hive too long.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Yep, simple shake test in apiary also works.

I then check again in extraction room but in general OSR doesn't need to be capped!

 

[Arfermo]

Bees evapoartae down to 18% normally. 15% sems too low. Are you sure your fractometer is correctly calibrated? Just curious.

 

[drstitson]

as above - shake test all that's necessary and the rule for OSR is different to everything else!!!

 

[Elaine]

I often see 17 - 17.5% (in uncapped cells) but never as low as 15% My decision on whether to take the honey is based on the shake test, I will check a couple of cells before extracting, and then another check of the bach before putting it into jars. I take frames of honey, rather than waiting for a whole super, saves the bees wasting thier energy in producing cappings

 

[Amari]

Yep, simple shake test in apiary also works.
I then check again in extraction room but in general OSR doesn't need to be capped!

Yes, good point. I didn't think to do shake, wish I had.

 

[Amari]

Bees evapoartae down to 18% normally. 15% sems too low. Are you sure your fractometer is correctly calibrated? Just curious.

Mmm.... I calibrated when I bought it at Xmas but not since. No time/bandwidth at the moment. In many years of beek-ing I'v never had such slow drips from the uncapping tray. Maybe I should deploy KISS and throw away the spectrometer.

 

[user 6228]

Mmm.... I calibrated when I bought it at Xmas but not since. No time/bandwidth at the moment. In many years of beek-ing I'v never had such slow drips from the uncapping tray. Maybe I should deploy KISS and throw away the spectrometer.

perhaps practise with spectrometer instead and get a feel for how the water content changes with the behaviour of the honey in the comb. Use the instrument to calibrate "you" so then you wont need to use it much at all.Just like luggage scales and hefting

 

[masterBK]

Spectrometer? Surely Amari means a refractometer. Water content unlikely to be 15%.

 

[user 6228]

Spectrometer? Surely Amari means a refractometer. Water content unlikely to be 15%.

yes I meant refractometer, I was thinking about all the instruments I had played with, but none made music

Seen 16.5 % water content

The other instrument the beekeeper bought off ebay was a Polarimeter for finding the sugar composition.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Polarimet...urement_Equipment_ET&var=&hash=item2c789835a5

 

[Moggs]

Careful timing with OSR. Recent harvest of say 40 - 50% capped cells - immediately (and I mean within the hour) extracted. 17.5% water and straight through a fine filter. In buckets now so it can set like concrete if it wants to.


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[steve_e]

When you extract honey you believe to be OSR (and allow it to set like concrete as you say) would you be intending to warm it later for bottling and seed it to provide set honey?

 

[Ely]

Taking mine off tomorrow. Quite low on supers so I'll have to quickly extract and bang them back on again. Is OSR generally still giving out nectar in the East Norfolk area?

 

[YorkshireBees]

When you extract honey you believe to be OSR (and allow it to set like concrete as you say) would you be intending to warm it later for bottling and seed it to provide set honey?

I let it set (generally it IS like concrete) for a while and then gently warm it to 34-35C in a warming cabinet and then stir it well.
After stirring I give it a couple more days in the warming cabinet to allow any air bubbles introduced in the stirring to rise to the surface and then jar it and let it set.

Never bothered with seeding honey and it comes out perfect soft set every time!

 

[Moggs]

When you extract honey you believe to be OSR (and allow it to set like concrete as you say) would you be intending to warm it later for bottling and seed it to provide set honey?

Certainly it needs warming again to produce soft set. The degree of warming depends on whether you intend to seed it or not. Some obtain acceptable results by mashing to break down the crystal structure. For a full seeding operation, the honey must be brought back to a liquid state.


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[steve_e]

Thanks both. I made set honey last year for the first time (not from OSR) and seeded it and it was really lovely honey, so I was wondering how OSR should be treated, given that it wants to set anyway.

 

[masterBK]

OSR generally doesn't need seeding as it naturally sets with a small crystal anyway (unless you have overheated it when it will then tend to set with larger chunkier crystal)

 

[steve_e]

Thanks for that masterBK - didn't know that.