Jelly Honey anyone?

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Beeline

House Bee
Joined
May 1, 2011
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408
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Location
Surrey
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
6
Well as strange as it sounds that is exactly how it appears - soft jelly or gelatine. :eek: I've tried warming it before extraction and ended up with only about a 1/3 extracted and when it did, it hit the side of the extractor like a blob of soft jelly. I had to use the hair drier to warm the sides of the extractor to encourage it to slide to the bottom and when I tilted the extractor it had a skin or film on top much like soft toffee.

I don't think this is ivy as it's not flowering in the area. Strange thing is the hive next to it had runny honey.

I've ended up cutting this comb into blocks and bottling it with runny honey as it tastes really really good.

Anyone experienced this? If I'm going to be faced with the same scenario next year I'll go for cut comb.
 
Sounds like heather - take a small amount and and agitate with a fork, If it turns runny that confirms it - Thixthropic is the word - whether I've spelt it correctly is another matter:D
 
One part heather to two parts rape is the best honey i've tasted.
 
Sounds like heather - take a small amount and and agitate with a fork, If it turns runny that confirms it - Thixthropic is the word - whether I've spelt it correctly is another matter:D

Well if that is what Heather honey does when aggitated with a fork then you're all bang on correct - it has turned runny.

Cannot think for the life of me where they are finding heather.

So how do those of you who send your bees to the moors extract this honey? I gave up.
 
Source Wikipedia

HideNatural examples

Some clays are thixotropic, with their behavior of great importance in structural and geotechnical engineering. Landslides, such as those common in the cliffs around Lyme Regis, Dorset and in the Aberfan spoil tip disaster in Wales are evidence of this phenomenon. Similarly, a lahar is a mass of earth liquefied by a volcanic event, which rapidly solidifies once coming to rest.

Drilling muds used in geotechnical applications can be thixotropic. Honey from honey bees may also exhibit this property under certain conditions.(heather honey).

Another example of a thixotropic fluid is the synovial fluid found in joints between some bones. The ground substance in the human body is thixotropic, as is semen.[1]

Some clay deposits found in the process of exploring caves exhibit thixotropism: an initially solid-seeming mudbank will turn soupy and yield up moisture when dug into or otherwise disturbed. These clays were deposited in the past by low-velocity streams which tend to deposit fine-grained sediment.

A thixotropic fluid is best visualised by an oar blade embedded in mud. Pressure on the oar often results in a highly viscous (more solid) thixotropic mud on the pressure side of the blade, and low viscosity (very fluid) thixotropic mud on the low pressure side of the oar blade. Flow from the high pressure side to the low pressure side of the oar blade is non-Newtonian. (i.e.: fluid velocity is not proportional to the square root of the pressure differential over the oar blade).
 
Well if that is what Heather honey does when aggitated with a fork then you're all bang on correct - it has turned runny.

Cannot think for the life of me where they are finding heather.

So how do those of you who send your bees to the moors extract this honey? I gave up.

Whereabouts in Surrey are you? There is a surprising amount of managed heathland around.
 
These hives are sited on the outskirts of Godalming, near the Winkworth Arboretum.
 
Heather turns up in he most surprising places. Railway cuttings used and dis used .
I once had heather honey on top of flower honey . The devil of a job to extract .
Nearest heather (in meaningful amounts) is 6 miles away . That particular year August was hot and humid ,very little wind , oh ,and balsam wasn't wide spread at all :)
never happened before or since .
VM
 
Source Wikipedia

HideNatural examples

Some clays are thixotropic, with their behavior of great importance in structural and geotechnical engineering. Landslides, such as those common in the cliffs around Lyme Regis, Dorset and in the Aberfan spoil tip disaster in Wales are evidence of this phenomenon. Similarly, a lahar is a mass of earth liquefied by a volcanic event, which rapidly solidifies once coming to rest.

Drilling muds used in geotechnical applications can be thixotropic. Honey from honey bees may also exhibit this property under certain conditions.(heather honey).

Another example of a thixotropic fluid is the synovial fluid found in joints between some bones. The ground substance in the human body is thixotropic, as is semen.[1]

Some clay deposits found in the process of exploring caves exhibit thixotropism: an initially solid-seeming mudbank will turn soupy and yield up moisture when dug into or otherwise disturbed. These clays were deposited in the past by low-velocity streams which tend to deposit fine-grained sediment.

A thixotropic fluid is best visualised by an oar blade embedded in mud. Pressure on the oar often results in a highly viscous (more solid) thixotropic mud on the pressure side of the blade, and low viscosity (very fluid) thixotropic mud on the low pressure side of the oar blade. Flow from the high pressure side to the low pressure side of the oar blade is non-Newtonian. (i.e.: fluid velocity is not proportional to the square root of the pressure differential over the oar blade).

Best example of a thixotropic fluid i know is ketchup. Turn the bottle over - nothing. Shake the bottle... ketchup!
 
I occasionally get something like that, there is an area of heather, maybe 50m square a few hundred metres away. The honey is often in a patch slap bang in the centre of just a couple of frames in one super. When it eventually gets flung out of the frames it gets mixed with the predominantly tree honey.
 
Drilling muds (water based) can indeed have this characteristic. Hence the importance of agitators in the pits.

PH
 

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