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  • From: Tom Wright <twright AT vicksburg.com>
  • To: "Orange County, NC Beekeepers" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] harvesting ubcapped honey
  • Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 12:01:13 -0400

Janet Austin wrote:
Message
    To address the original question, The Hive and the Honey Bee (1992 edition) p. 895-896 says,
"When exposed to air of R.H. [relative humidity] less than the equilibrium value, honey loses moisture at the surface, but much more slowly below the surface. The moisture content of honey (even in the comb) can be reduced by exposure to air or R.H. less than the equilibrium value. This may be attained by raising the temperature of the air or by mechanical dehumidification. Using a dehumidifier to reduce R.H. in the drying room to 30%, Killion (1950) reduced the moisture content of honey in 130 supers from 21 to 17% in 23 days at 27 [degrees] C. Circulation of heated air is also used for this purpose. Townsend (1961) described a drying room holding up to 72 supers in which warmed air at 32-35 degrees C (90-95 degrees F) is passed through, removing 1 to 3% moisture in 24 hours. The lower the temperature of the air before heating, the more efficient is the process, since its RH is lower after heating." This practice is commonly employed in commercial honey production.
    Stating it a little more simply, The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture (40th edition) p 214 says, "If warm air is forced through supers filled with honey, even though the cells are capped, it is possible to remove as much as one percent moisture from the honey in 24 hours. The precise quantity of moisture that may be removed varies with the moisture content of the honey, the volume of the air and the relative humidity in the room."
    And about the whole question of sealed versus unsealed honey, ABC/XYZ says on p 462, "After the bees have ripened honey, they normally cover the cells with wax cappings. The cells that contain honey, but are not yet capped, are referred to as unsealed. As a general rule we think of unsealed honey as not being ripe; however, this is not always true and unsealed cells can contain honey of a proper moisture content. Also, cells of honey covered with cappings can still take on or lose moisture; water vapor can move through the cappings. The role of the cappings is not clear but presumably they prevent the contamination of the honey by bees walking over the surface of the comb."
    Further gleanings from these 2 sources: Enzymes are added to nectar while it is in the gut of the forager bees and the receiving house bees. Sometimes the house bees will put drops of nectar in holding cells, and then later consolidate them. Presumably more enzymes would be added in the gut each time the nectar is moved, but they only do this "sometimes" so it isn't an integral part of the process. Ripening takes several days (not longer). The enzymatic action continues on after ripening, capping, extraction, bottling, etc. until there is nothing left for the enzymes to act on (i.e. until every bit of sucrose is converted to glucose and fructose), or until artificial heating stops the process.
    My interpretation of this information is that if the cells are half-filled with honey and have been for a while, then they have ripened honey in them. The shake test will help verify that (give the frame a sharp shake over a piece of paper; if wet stuff comes out then we'll assume the water content is too high). Ripened unsealed honey is no more or less guaranteed to be of the proper water content than honey that is capped.
 
We'd love to get these sorts of discussions on the "forums" section of the OCBA website: http://www.theocba.org/ !
 
Randall Austin
-----Original Message-----
From: ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Tom Wright
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 7:13 PM
To: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
Subject: Re: [ocba] harvesting ubcapped honey

Patrick Gannon wrote:
thx tom
the ubiquitous enzymes.
you are right on but the question is do the bees introduce it/them during nectar collection before deposit in combs or is it done [also] by caretakers long after. if the former, seems like dehydration will work. The enzymes are introduced by "receiver" bees before they regurgitate the nectar into the cells. I don't know the relative contribution of enzymes vs dehydration in curing. If mostly dehydration then dehydrator should work to some degree. How will you know that you have reduced the moisture to the point that you don't have to worry about fermentation?
your question about leaving supers on.
1) there is plenty of honey in the 2 brood boxes; 2) why leave on honey they won't use;Depending on the winter, they may or may not use it: the big push comes in the spring buildup. I'd rather have too much in the hive than not enough. Starvation is messy, especially if you get wax moths, and going into the first honey flow with a weak hive isn't much better. If you leave it on, you can always harvest next year. Are you being greedy? and 3) even if if i leave supers on there i think that would be too much open space for a tight winter cluster to deal with [heat conservation].The amount of open space in the hive is basically irrelevant as the bees don't heat what they don't have to, something people haven't learned.Why heat thousands of f2 of space when you only occupy a small part at any given time? As the cluster cools, cool, they move from the outside to the center of the cluster. They are sufficiently efficient at this that "dead air" in the hive is usually very close to the outside temperature. Likewise, you can keep the bedroom very cool if you "cluster" under the covers with a friend.


Tom Wright
 
great list you guys
patrick

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Seems like a lot of work to get a little bit of honey, unless you're desperate for honey. Hope youall's bees are ready for winter. They should still be working goldenrod (you can tell because hives smell like old socks), but honey is fine but tends to granulate)and wild asters. MS state apiarist tells me it was a banner year.Drought reduced amount of nectar but presumably concentrated it and low humidity assisted curing. Many hives produced over 200lbs. Normal state annual average is about 55lbs. I hear rumors from out your way that SHB eggs go through strainers and proceed to hatch in extracted honey, creating one Hell of a mess. Hence you should pastuerize your honey. I have doubts about this. Can anyone enlighten me further?

Tom Wright



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