Something like this or perhaps something with a deeper container under it?
That looks good. Do you find that the honey that drips/runs out has a higher water content? I suppose you'd blend it in with the other stuff anyhow....
You won't get much increase in HMF at 40C overnightI won't worry about HMF levels as I can keep that back for "personal use"
It would probably take a couple of weeks to get above the legal limit of 40.
That’s what I’m doing James - popping down to my local Thornes agent today to pick up a spare double filter strainer. Reckon they need swopping over every 3 or 4 supers. I also warm the honey before filtering and it runs through much quicker.Well it's reassuring to know that it's not just me having problems with the filters then
It's only half a dozen frames at most with honey that doesn't want to spin out, so perhaps I can put those back in the warming cabinet and jack up the temperature a bit to see if that helps. I won't worry about HMF levels as I can keep that back for "personal use"
James
Read sonewhere for HMF to materially increase it has to be around 60c for around 5 hours
Your stand looks amazing
Technique. Taught me by @mbc. You need to keep decent pressure on the valve while it's open.
I bought this straining / uncapping tray from Thornes a few seasons ago. Base tray has a tap to decant strained cappings honey with a strainer tray that sits on top. Comes with a piece of wood that sits across the tray with a sunken groove to place the end of the lug when uncapping. Also a metal rack to put uncapped supers and a lid.
Please explain how?
I store the supers in a conservatory before extracting to get the water content down. Results for this year are between 16 to 18% water content. Also as an experiment I had a thin layer of honey on a tray in the conservatory to see what I could get it down to, I stopped at 12% water content.
takes minutes - do it outside, hose set to 'jet' and and a quick blast on the underside clears it, quick shake or stood in the sun for a while and it's dry.
I just bought a 600x400x200mm deep food safe box from Solent Plastics, shallow frames fit nicely on the top rim, you just have to remember to regularly pour out the honey that drips into it before it gets too heavy, I have the same size box to put my uncapping tray on as the Abelo uncapping outfit drip tray, although fitted with a honey gate is too tall for me to uncap the frames comfortably
I use their table eg for heating heather honey quickly to 60 / 63 to decrystallise, for an hour. I remembered where Id read about HMF and time / temperature...Andy Peldley's new book on 'Food safety for beekeepers'. He's the H&S officer at the National honey show & qualified in environmental health. HMF should be no more than 40mg/kg and he states that it takes 1-2.5days at 60C & similar for 70C, for 30mg of HMF to accumulate, based on analysis of 3 samples. It takes 4-10 days at 50C and 2 hours at 80C. So don't need to worry about heating honey at 60C for an hour.
Easy. People complain when jarring that the honey drips round the top and side of the valve.
Thorne's sell a more substantial plastic gate valve with a guide strip that maintains contact with the clamping screw for partial opening of the valve. My son bought me a couple a few years ago and they work quite well.
Good and I mean good ... not the crap cheap ones you can get on ebay ... stainless steel honey gates are by far the most reliable. Very few of the plastic ones are as reliable but one that I've found pretty good is this one from Thornes.
