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Behind the Scenes -Gathering and Processing Honey
That Pretty Jar on the Shelf is Deceiving
By: James E. Tew
There is no “Light Honey”
An irrefutable characteristic of honey is that it is heavy – nearly twelve pounds per gallon. There is no negotiating this characteristic. Lifting honey, in any form, requires back-breaking labor or expensive machinery.
Unprocessed honey is heavy in the supers. Frames full of honey are heavy during the extracting process and finally, honey is heavy in jars or buckets – not to mention 600-pound drums. We can control mites. We can maintain good queen stock. We can have all our hives facing east (or south). We can do many things in beekeeping, but we cannot make our bees make “light honey”.
A second irrefutable honey fact is that it is sticky and seems it end up on everything – even clinging to Teflon non-stick pans. Hands, shoes, floors, steering wheels and tabletops are all common places where honey is clearly sticky. Seemingly, any second-grade elementary class in a show-and-tell session, can take just a bit of honey and effectively cover all flat surfaces within the room.
Honey is hardy. It stores well and it resists molding or souring. That’s good. Anything heavy and sticky needs an occasional positive attribute.
Honey is sweet. Every human on planet Earth, and many animals, knows this characteristic of honey. It was sweet long before we managed to concoct granulated sugar or squeeze maple syrup from trees.
There it is. Honey is heavy and sticky, but it is a stable, sweet product that is consistently in high demand. Beekeeping humans have spent eons trying to accumulate as much honey as possible. During that time, we have developed efficient techniques for coercing honey from its rightful owners – honey bees. We should have the system down pat by now. Yeah right. There are plenty of problems that can spring up in the best honey production and processing procedure. For your review, I have selected a few of occasions to discuss in this piece.
I got a good honey crop, but it has granulated in the combs before I could extract it.
Well, you can jack up the speed of your extractor just about as high as you want but that crystallized honey will never sling from the combs. Honey from some crops, such as canola, granulates quickly. There is nothing you can do except extract it as soon as the honey is capped. Then, rather than crystallizing in the comb, it will granulate in storage, but at least you can reliquefy it as needed either for selling or consuming.
What to do with crystallized combs? Give it back to the bees. They made it, let them worry with it. They will use it, somewhat wastefully, to produce more bees. Using crystallized combs for making splits, feeding to wintering colonies, or getting swarms off to a good start, are common uses for solidified honey. Such solidified honey is not a great food source, but the bees will use it and it somewhat attractive to needy bees.
I got hot and tired so I left a lot of bees in the supers. I tried to bounce the supers on the ground to jar the bees out.
Broke a lot of frame top-bar lugs, didn’t you? A deep frame of honey can weigh as much as nine pounds. Banging deep supers on the ground to dislodge bees frequently breaks the frames along the top bar ends. This is such a common occurrence that bee supply companies sell metal repair parts to put the broken frame back into production. No great riddle here. To prevent frame breakage, don’t bounce full supers on the ground. Yet another option – use plastic frames.
I put on traditional Porter Bee-Escapes on the inner covers (just like the book instructed), but when I returned to remove the crop, bees were robbing everything.
It happens. Honey is normally taken from the bees after the crop is over, ergo a nectar dearth is underway. If you don’t seal all the broken corners and cracks of the supers you plan to remove, marauding bees will find their way back into the undefended supers and re-appropriate the crop. Anytime you plan on using a bee removal device that requires a second trip to the outyard, be certain that all other entrances are blocked. Secondly, hope for cool weather that will require bees to move down toward the brood nest out of the supers. Even on the best of occasions, you will probably need to brush out the remaining bees with a bee brush (an event the bees just love).
I used a commercial product containing butyric anhydride to remove the crop. Now my truck smells terrible.
This type of produce is an excellent repellent. Smelling a bit like a skunk, it drives neighbors, relatives, spouses,and family pets, from the area. This stuff is notoriously smelly. De-scented forms are available.
Normally, when removing honey, you are hot and irritable. Bees are numerous and are prone to sting. Your normal impulse is to use more of the product and to work too fast. Wrong, wrong. Use the product judiciously and don’t get it on anything but the fume boards you are using. Give it time to work. Upon arriving at the extracting room, let the supers air out for a while before beginning to process the crop. You should also bathe regularly.
I left a lot of bees in the supers. I thought a would just blow them off on the way home.
Bad move. Honey is a hardy product, but by exposing the crop to dust and dirt on the ride home you effectively allowed the product to become a bit contaminated – possibly even gritty if conditions were dusty enough. Cover the supers before traveling. It is also important to attach the tops to the supers so they won’t go sailing off on the trip home. Some personal experience here.
I was hauling a load home some years ago and watched in transfixed horror in my rear-view mirror as a top sailed off the load, bounced once and then lodged beneath an Audi that was passing me in the left lane. Sparks were flying from the top as it dragged along under the car. I vividly remember trying to make small talk with the driver after we had both stopped and I had retrieved my hive cover. Bees were buzzing all about. The other driver was frightened – both from the bees and from the experience. The driver was strangely agreeable and tolerant considering all I had just put him through. It was not a good day for me.
A big honey crop is the goal of every beekeeper. Bee books are filled with instructions describing how to get the best crop, but little is ever said of the requirement that you, the beekeeper, will be required to pick up heavy, sticky, boxes – each having small handles and weighing 65-95 pounds and filled with testy bees.
There’s no getting around it. Honey is heavy and sticky. Bees are everywhere stinging you, getting stuck in honey, or flying about in great confused clouds. You ache all over. Your hands, back and fingers hurt. Your gloves are wet and sticky and you constantly review exactly what it was that first lured you to beekeeping. Then you consider the alternative – what if all these boxes were empty?
I knocked off for lunch. When I returned, I found that my filter had plugged up and honey was all over the settling tank and the floor.
Then in the extracting room, a new set of challenges awaits you. The biggest issue here involves something stopping up, something running over, or something bursting. You find yourself with honey in all the wrong places – usually the floor. Commercial beekeepers have stories of hundreds of pounds of honey running onto the floor. There are no easy solutions. Extracting facilities – all the way from a kitchen table to a full-blown extracting plant- have unique characteristics that should work well, but when they don’t, a messy situation usually results.
Processing honey is a bit like painting a house. First thing, get paint all over you, then you can paint efficiently. Processing honey is a heavy, sticky business. You should realize that extracting, by design, is a messy business. Have copious amounts of water nearby and be prepared to be constantly cleaning. Never forget that the honey in lines, filters, or sumps can be enough to overwhelm your system when left unattended. What to do with spilled honey? Honey is tough to abuse, but you must always keep the customer, and your reputation, in mind. If you won’t eat it, then don’t sell it to someone else. Once the honey gets away from you, be prepared to use if only for bee feed. All beekeepers have cans of such honey. The bees can readily use it for developing brood populations.
When I was still working at Ohio State, I had a newspaper reporter tour the extracting lab. Things were neat and clean – except for the perfunctory containers of broken combs and spilled honey. I thought nothing of it. She asked in a high-pitched voice, “What is this stuff?” to which I responded, “That’s just junk honey.” I then went on to explain how there is commonly spillage and waste in the processing procedure and that such honey was commonly given back to the bees during warmer months. The article came out within a few days appearing as though it has been an in-depth discussion on “junk honey” and its uses. The term must have been used ten times. I have never used the terminology, junk honey, again. I suppose extracting honey is like making sausage. There are some things people just don’t want to see.
After getting back to the extracting house, I have found that a good deal of the frames are not capped. I am planning just to extract that and mix it with the capped honey.
I need to know how much honey is a “good deal” of honey. If you allow the overall moisture content to rise above 18.6% moisture, there is a good chance that fermentation can occur in your stored crop. You can find yourself with gallon upon gallon of low-grade honey vinegar in swollen plastic containers or leaking jars. Consider setting aside those frames that are only half capped. Give them back to the bees to finish capping or extract the thin honey separately and feed it back to the bees.
I like to give the bees a treat so I let them rob out the wet supers after I extract.
It’s not worth the risk for so small a “treat”. There are only a few ounces of honey involved. There are risks of spreading disease or of robbing getting out of control. During a dearth, literally hundreds of thousands of bees can be attracted to the odor of exposed wet combs. Common procedures such as smoking the roaming bees will no longer work. Your neighbors or occasional visitors will be subjected to hordes of out-of-control bees. It’s just not worth the risk.
Just another beekeeping dream
All beekeepers have, at one time or another, dozed off dreaming of full supers of capped honey with the smell of fresh honey from nature’s larder filling the air. The hum of extractor sounds like money being made. In reality, a heavy honey crop is a conundrum – it’s great to have, but it means a lot of work (Just like catching too many fish). Be prepared for hot, tiring work with sticky honey and disoriented bees covering the extracting room windows. Be prepared for equipment failures and leaking fittings. Especially, be prepared for clogged filters.
However, once the crop is all neatly stored in clean containers and your professional label shows the pride of your craft, it will all be worthwhile. You’ll be making plans for next year’s big crop with no thought of the requisite pain. It’s all part of the business.
Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com
Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com
