Monofloral honey, a dummy question

[Zante]

I have a neighbour with several hectares of chestnuts. He will most probably allow me to place as many hives as I want, and even help me to do so, so I'm looking forward to a small crop of chestnut honey next year.

The question here is: I'm guessing one has to take any existing supers off and provide the bees with empty supers, so to keep the honey as monofloral as possible.
From the removed supers the capped frames can be extracted, so no problem there, but what of the uncapped ones? Is it reasonable to plonk them on a hive that stays in the "base camp" apiary to finish off? How many such supers could a hive handle before it's too many?
Could there be issues with passing supers from hive to hive? Consider I'm thinking of a single apiary for this, so the hives are going to be neighbours anyway.

 

[enrico]

Within the same apiary I swap supers, I have never had a problem, but that doesn't mean it is best practice!
You can never have too many supers but once one is capped I will remove a super or juggle frames so I can remove one. The higher it gets the less stable it gets, a gust of wind could lose you a lot of crop. Common sense is the key.
Not sure why you can't let the parent colony cap its own supers off though!
E

 

[Zante]

Within the same apiary I swap supers, I have never had a problem, but that doesn't mean it is best practice!
You can never have too many supers but once one is capped I will remove a super or juggle frames so I can remove one. The higher it gets the less stable it gets, a gust of wind could lose you a lot of crop. Common sense is the key.

Ok, but the question was how many supers of uncapped frames can a colony handle without spoiling part of the content. If I remove the supers from say six colonies, and with the uncapped frames I make up four supers, can a single colony mature four supers of uncapped honey before it starts spoiling?

Not sure why you can't let the parent colony cap its own supers off though!
E

Because I want them to collect only chestnut (or lime or acacia) honey, and I want them to have empty frames to fill. By giving them empty supers for the chestnut flow I know that the honey in the supers will be pure (or pure enough) chestnut.

If I leave the supers they've been filling so far the honey will be mixed with what they had been collecting until then.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I think you can dream on with that one unless you have the same and only forage for a couple of miles radius.

 

[Zante]

I think you can dreqam on with that one unless you have the same and only forage for a couple of miles radius.

Close enough. This neighbour has over 300 hectares of mountainside, all woods. He cuts down wood and sells it, and has a few hectares of chestnut and a bit of agricultural land for his own use.

The vast majority of his woods are oak, ash and some wild cherry here and there, where he doesn't have the chestnut groves. There is very little undergrowth.

Also I said "pure enough". I don't mind if there is a little bit of "extraneous" honey, but I'd like the chestnut to be predominant enough to be able to call it chestnut honey.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

A few hectares - how much is a few?

 

[Zante]

I know he has at least 10 hectares of just chestnut trees. Some domestic, some "wild" (as in low quality fruits used to feed the livestock)
By "just chestnut trees" I mean that there are no other trees, and that the undergrowth ir regularly removed to make collecting the chestnuts easier.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

so twenty five,thirty acres then

 

[Truble]

Also I said "pure enough". I don't mind if there is a little bit of "extraneous" honey, but I'd like the chestnut to be predominant enough to be able to call it chestnut honey.

You will need to check that the vast majority of the pollen in your extracted honey is from the floral/tree source you claim. I've never been able to track down an exact figure for the percentage it needs to be for a monofloral honey and have been quoted as low as 40% or a minimum of 60%. This does get a bit complicated if you take under and over representation of pollen grains into account.
Bees will forage on what they find as the optimal nectar sources, it often isn't what you think (or hope) it might be.
I hope this of some help.

 

[Zante]

Still, the main question wasn't addressed.

If I remove the supers that are on the hives to add empty ones once I reach the chestnut groves, what do I do with the uncapped frames in the supers I removed? Can I put them on a colony that I keep at the base apiary to finish maturing?
How much uncapped frames would a colony be able to process before the unripe honey starts spoiling?

I don't expect to be able to just put three or four supers of uncapped frames on top of a hive, but maybe I'm wrong...

 

[Hivemaker.]

what do I do with the uncapped frames in the supers I removed? Can I put them on a colony that I keep at the base apiary to finish maturing?

Yes you can, four or five supers of unripe honey placed on a strong colony would be no problem... or you could just extract the honey and put it through a honey drier.

 

[poshpikey]

Does anyone know of a small scale honey drier for sale in uk that is not ridiculously expensive? thanks

 

[BeeJayBee]

Does anyone know of a small scale honey drier for sale in uk that is not ridiculously expensive? thanks

A domestic dehumidifier might work?

 

[Eyeman]

A honey warming cabinet works.
I have an old fridge and if I make a gap at the top of the door to let the humid air escape then 8oz honey jars will drop approx 0.5% point / day. From memory the temp was set to 40 degrees. I would expect a bucket of honey to take longer.