What different types of honey do you sell

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Joined
Mar 13, 2016
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Location
Burwell, Cambs
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
9
I've been beekeeping for 4 years but only this year have I had enough to sell. I've always had OSR near to me but have never found spring honey to crystallise - no idea why. Anyway of course this year it has. I've been selling to friends and friends of friends via facebook and no one minds - I've just told them to warm it through a bit. I obviously want to get a bit more organised next year. I've read about producing soft set honey with the seeding method which all sounds a bit of a faff to be honest and requires you to warm the honey to a higher degree than I thought you should. I recently found a method where you just heat it to 37 degree and mix it well to break up the crystals and then it turns into soft set which I tried with one jar the other day and it's worked beautifully. If this works I can't see the advantage of doing the more complicated method of seeding. I've take a small amount of summer honey now so will see what this does but I'm intrigued at what types of honey you people who have been selling for years actually sell. I plan to make some soft set next year from spring honey but should you actually just heat spring honey to also have runny honey (if so to what temperature is acceptable) or does this have to just be summer honey?

Sorry this is a bit garbled I just have heard some people say that honey should not be heated so am interested in what types others sell and methods you use.
 
I sell soft set, spring honey, summer honey and cut comb.
I make soft set from summer honey because my spring honey is from Hawthorn and is too beautiful a colour to soft set. Customers appreciate the difference in the darker spring honey and the much lighter summer crop and usually buy both.
I have no OSR and use this simple method to soft set
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kLGE-7n0_Ko
 
People say lots of things and often its rubbish. ;)

I now only sell cut comb but when I was commercial it was creamed blossom and creamed heather and of course creamed malt whisky honey too. If you can master creaming it makes life a great deal easier.

PH
 
I get plenty of OSR honey so lots of soft set, I don't think you are allowed to call it creamed any more as it does not contain any cream (more EU madness).
There are several different methods for making soft set honey the end result is similar but some of the simpler methods do give quite a large crystal size.
If you are happy with your current method and the end result remains soft stay with it. Or try a couple of the different methods...they all work to some degree.
 
I crop honey from all (10) of my small (1-5 hive) apiaries individually and try to sell as local as possible via small shops close to the hives. Three of my apiaries were near rape this year so their spring crop was turned into soft set.
All of my apiaries are within about 6 miles of my house so I also sell a selection direct from my house.
The picture below shows 7 of the 9 different honeys I have available at the moment and the customers love to try and compare. I had one customer take 6 different ones at the end of last week!
I have produced some lovely comb and even sections but the market doesn't see that strong around me.
 

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Ok thanks all. It's weird everything I have taken off previous to this year has been runny about the same colour and stayed the same so I feel like a novice. I think my plan will be to cream the spring OSR honey using my simple method. I have an aga which is off now but I think it's coolest over would be about 50 degree so it would make a less granular soft set than I have made this time at 37 in the oven, but I think it would be ok to heat it to that heat. I'll hopefully leave the summer crop as it is but I will see what this years crop does.
 

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