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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
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Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone
- From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
- Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone
- Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2015 10:44:47 -0400
That's a really good question, John.
When we pull honey frames that aren't 100% capped, the uncapped honey may have been dried but the bees have gotten lazy and just haven't capped it. Often this honey has a glazed, semi-opaque look to it. Whether storing it as-is or extracting it, it is wise to check the water content. An easy field test is to hold the frame horizontally over a flat surface (e.g. a sheet of paper or the hive cover) and give it one very strong up-and-down shake. If the honey is sufficiently dry, it will stay in the frame. If it rains on the flat surface, it is too wet and will eventually ferment. A more precise test is to use a honey refractometer to determine the actual water content. 18.6 percent and lower is safe; 18.6 to 20 percent is risky; over 20 percent is sure to ferment in a few months. When we are extracting, it is okay to include a little bit of wet honey as long as most of the honey is dry or very dry, since the final result will be a blend. But honey in the comb isn't a blend so it will all need to be dry for storing, unless we are storing it long-term in the freezer. I am curious as to how much freeze-drying will occur on the wet honey in the freezer -- that would be a good experiment. Maybe storing wet honey in the comb in the freezer for X weeks will result in freeze-dried honey that can then be stored at room temperature? I don't know. If someone is planning to store frames that still have wet honey in them, one option is to just leave those frames on the hive a bit longer. Pull the good frames and just leave the wet ones. Go back in two weeks and see how they are doing. For most of us, we won't see any new nectar until September so those old frames may now be dry since nothing will have been added. If not, wait a couple more weeks. Randall On 7/13/2015 8:33 AM, John Rintoul wrote: 126D37CD-CAF0-417C-8E0F-27C1E412BB06 AT icloud.com" type="cite"> Randall, |
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[ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone,
Phil DeGuzman, 07/09/2015
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Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone,
Randall Austin, 07/12/2015
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Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone,
John Rintoul, 07/13/2015
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Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone,
Randall Austin, 07/13/2015
- Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone, Phil DeGuzman, 07/13/2015
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Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone,
Randall Austin, 07/13/2015
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Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone,
John Rintoul, 07/13/2015
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Re: [ocba] Removing capped honey or just leave it alone,
Randall Austin, 07/12/2015
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