Overheated honey

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Mandeville

House Bee
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Messages
257
Reaction score
7
Location
Ripley, Surrey
Hive Type
WBC
Number of Hives
1
My honey warmer thermostat failed and 10 jars of honey spent several hours at 60-70 degrees C. Is the honey of any use for anything now? Or do I just bin it?
 
Use it for cooking? Feed it back to the bees?
I would not feed it back to the bees at that temperature it will have produced some HMF which will kill bees ... it's marginal according to the table that David Cramp produced that gives how long and at what temperatire it takes to produce 30mg/Kg in honey:

Temp(C) Time
30 100-300 days
40 20-50 days
50 4-10 days
60 1-2.5 days
70 3-5 hours
80 <2 hours

However, HMF is perfectly safe for humans at those levels - the legal limit for honey to be sold as honey is 40mg/Kg ... I rather doubt you would have got to that level. I would not sell it .. but I would eat it - It may have lost a few of the taste enzymes through being heated but it's still going to taste better than anything you buy in a supermarket.
 
I would not feed it back to the bees at that temperature it will have produced some HMF which will kill bees ... it's marginal according to the table that David Cramp produced that gives how long and at what temperatire it takes to produce 30mg/Kg in honey:

Temp(C) Time
30 100-300 days
40 20-50 days
50 4-10 days
60 1-2.5 days
70 3-5 hours
80 <2 hours

However, HMF is perfectly safe for humans at those levels - the legal limit for honey to be sold as honey is 40mg/Kg ... I rather doubt you would have got to that level. I would not sell it .. but I would eat it - It may have lost a few of the taste enzymes through being heated but it's still going to taste better than anything you buy in a supermarket.
That's really useful, thank you!
 

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