a rookie question that this rookie does not know

[fenux1255]

we just took the frames off the 2 hives i have and spun the honey out for our second harvest of the season,
the first harvest was a success however i jumped the gun in july (1st harvest) and now i had to do a second one
my question is when i spun the honey the from the second harvest some of the comb was not caped not alot but it seemed
that a chunk from each frame had some uncaped comb. so when i compared the 2 jars they were close to the same color
but the second harvest was not as thick as the first is that because some of it was not caped and if so is it no good i dont want to
have it ferment on me lol or is it possible that different harvests can produce different thicknesses

[asprince]

If better than half was capped, you will probably be fine. The only way to be sure is to check the moisture content with a refractometer.
As far as the thickness, was the temperature the same? Higher temps = thinner honey.


Steve

[RayMarler]

The parts that were uncapped, was the nectar in those areas thin or thick, would it shake out if you shook the frame? If it wouldn't shake out, then you're fine. Bees will fill the cells and cure the nectar, but not cap it until the cell is full, so you could have some cured or mostly cured nectar in those open cells. I bet your fine with it from what you've described.

[gaucho10]

How thick the honey flows has to do with what type of nectar the bees are bringing in.  Usually the Spring honey is lighter in color and might be more flowing or lighter in consistency.  I usually do not extract honey unless the cells are 80% sealed or better.  Like previously mentioned, a refractometer would help.  A few weeks ago I removed several frames that had less than 80% sealed cells.  Just for curiosity I took some honey out of the unsealed cells and measured on the refractometer.  I got a reading of 19% moisture content.  The moisture content should be 18% or less but considering that the sealed cells had a reading of 16% I went ahead and extracted.  If you take the frame and flip it on its side and honey (nectar) spills out of it then it is deffinitely not OK to extract.