Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: bill on February 28, 2006, 10:50:40 pm
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A lot of my honey this year granulated. is there some method to slow that down. is it a product of where the nectar came from?
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A lot of my honey this year granulated. is there some method to slow that down.
keep it above 60deg f or freeze it....!
is it a product of where the nectar came from?
most likely, is there goldenrod around you, ?
cause that would do it!
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The other thing that will make the honey granulate quickly is if you have a lot of cells on a frame that are not capped. I go for 95% or better capped. I have honey from last July that is still fine.
Chad
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The other thing that will make the honey granulate quickly is if you have a lot of cells on a frame that are not capped. I go for 95% or better capped. I have honey from last July that is still fine.
CAPPED CELLS.
Is the key to non-granulation. 100 % capped. The bees will cap all the cells if there is a honey flow going on. If the honey flow ceases before all the frames are capped you can leave them on the stack until the next flow and then the bees will continue to march.
You can also remove some of the frames that are, hopefully, all capped, from the boxes and extract those and leaving the rest. You can return the extracted frames to the same box for bee cleaning and await the future.
Those frames that are capped at less than 100 % can be extracted but depending how much the capping and THE quantity of total honey will determine the risk of granulation IMO. Dilution.
The above has been my experience. I was told by experienced beeks that frames capped at 80 % would be OK to extract. The bees took away any indecision for me by doing a 100 % capping in last springs honey flow and the honey did not granulate. Ditto for the fall flow, November, although not all the frames were filled and capped and I only pulled the capped ones. I am eating the fall flow right now and no granulation so far. The partially filled and uncapped frames are sitting on the hive stack right now and doing OK. That good honey smell permeates.
After giving away and then selling almost all of both seasons production I've had no complaints about granulation. The fall flow had some golden rod and I find it very good, although more pungent. Some will disagree.
Could be that folks living and keeping bees in colder climes will have a different take on the subject. In fact, THEY surely will. :D
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Do you have a lot of cotton or sunflowers around Midland? I have noticed both do granulate even when sealed.