OSR honey supers not capped or passing shake test

[simonforeman]

I have 7 full supers on my 2 garden hives that will be mostly OSR honey as the 2 fields are less than 300 yards away. They are so full that I am struggling to lift the supers off the hives.

The rape has now gone over with very little yellow left in the fields. I decided to take off today but out the 7 supers I got 10 frames that passed the shake test as none of them have much capped on them. I have extracted these and added the empty super back to original hive as the other 3 supers on are full. The honey I took off is 15 on refractometer so all good.


The rest of the frames around the edges the nectar ran out. So I'm thinking with the last few days in the 20s they are now all over the hawthorn so bringing this in.
So plan is to wait until next week and have another look to see if OK to take off.

Should I leave it that long?

It looks like a cold week coming up after today so am I likely to hit any other problems?

 

[drex]

This is the first year ever that there is no rape close by. In my experience it is not unusual to get unripe honey on the top of honey that is starting to crystallise.
Such frames I will leave to last to extract and keep separate in the bucket. If water content is very high I give it back to the bees, but it can be blended with a low water content honey and still come out OK on the refractometer.
The crystallised honey that remains in the comb is sprayed with water and given to the bees to clear out. It never seems to encourage the late crop to crystallise either.
Perhaps you had too many supers on with only 10 frames out of 70 extractable. With rape I tend to crowd them in on the supers and this often avoids the problem, but is a matter of judgement.
Moving frames around in the supers also helps