OSR questions

[Millet]

That makes no sense. Of course it is possible that some idiot has written such.

Moving the honey does not change glucose chemically. Bees move nectar many times before it is capped.
.

Don't bees have to bite through the crystallized honey once it is moistened and in the process making the crystals in the granulated honey smaller..

 

[drex]

Timing is key for OSR harvest. I manage to extract probably 95% . I put the wet supers back on top of hives over a partially open crow board and the bees clean them out within a few days. I dare say that some might be mixed in with fresh incoming nectar, but probably because the glucose:fructose ratio has been changed my second harvest of the year 3 months later is never crystalline . If I have any full brood frames of crystallised OSR honey they will be used up making nucs, which soon demolish it drawing out fresh foundation

 

[Poly Hive]

Myth as far as I have experienced.

Gean is wild cherry in Scotland. Cheers Hivemaker.

PH

 

[Millet]

Myth as far as I have experienced.

Gean is wild cherry in Scotland. Cheers Hivemaker.

PH

That will do for me..

 

[russ_01]

I was under the impression that bees can't do anything with crystallised OSR honey, or is this just crystallised in the super? Going by the answers, if the honey crystallised inside the brood box the bees could still use it for food or wax?

 

[Finman]

.
Lets say, that you have a swarm, you may give 3 frames crystallized honey to the swarm, and the rest frames foundations. After a week crystallized frames are all cleaned and cells are filled with brood.

But bees keep crystals as rubbish and may carry out quite a big amount of sugar. That is why it is better to help bees and spray water on opened combs.

If you do this, it is better that you yourself follow, what bees do and does the hive has a heap of sugar on floor.

The most stupid thing is if you melt combs. Wax has as much honey as the contents. Melted honey is waste.

You may give couple of crystal frames between brood frames and bees clean them for brooding.

If you put frames outdoors, robbing bees destroy the combs too.
.

 

[john t]

when i lived in Lincolnshire osr was everywhere, and the way i dealt with osr honey was to simply cut the comb out of the frame into a 30 llb plastic bucket leaving a sliver on the top bar as a starter strip, and return the super back to the colony, the honey was then warmed in a warming box over night and then allowed to cool, lift off the wax cake and filter the honey, leave it to cool, then rewarm and then cream the honey and pour into jars

most of my honey was from osr, i tried spinning , scraping the combs but the above method worked for me, i ended up selling my electric spinner as i couldn't use it for the honey in my area

 

[Poly Hive]

If you imagine the honey in the comb. Between the crystals there is fluid still. The bees suck this up thus drying the crystals further and then the bees remove them leaving the comb empty.

They will not really do this in supers but I suppose they would if the said super was below the brood nest.

When I was very isolated, and please note this you south people, I would stack up supers in the Spring at the OSR for the bees to clean out and when I needed them they were bonny and clean with a white layer of OSR crystals on the bottom of the stack.

Not a technique for busy areas, disease disease.... But a perfectly reasonable way to proceed if one has the isolation.

PH

 

[Finman]

If you imagine the honey in the comb. Between the crystals there is fluid still. The bees suck this up thus drying the crystals further and then the bees remove them leaving the comb empty.

They will not really do this in supers but I suppose they would if the said super was below the brood nest.



PH

That is the point, there are fluid and bees suck fluid off over night.
Then I spray water with garden host and wait that the water goes between crystals and starts to dilute sugar. Then again back to the hive.

Is that wise.... Two medium frames has 3 kg honey. Value is 30 € and I release the valuable comb for usage. In honey there are at least 30% process losses. But not 200% = comb + honey.

Bees do not have resources to handle at same time the whole box, but they handle 2-3 frames in couple days.
.