Capping supers

[Bridget]

I’ve started taking off supers as they are not getting anything from the heather now with the poor weather
. Where I have 2 supers one is capped the other hardly. If I leave the uncapped one a little longer do you think they will they finish capping it [emoji848]


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[fatshark]

I suspect they'll just finish it :)
The flow stopped pretty abruptly here and quite a few of my supers were partially capped. Water content was fine and they passed the 'shake test'.
I don't have heather honey so cannot comment, but if the weather is poor and the colonies are strong they'll be wanting something to eat.

[Bridget]

I suspect they'll just finish it :)
The flow stopped pretty abruptly here and quite a few of my supers were partially capped. Water content was fine and they passed the 'shake test'.
I don't have heather honey so cannot comment, but if the weather is poor and the colonies are strong they'll be wanting something to eat.

Thanks - that's pretty much what I was worried about. It passed the shake test but water content is about 21%.

[fatshark]

But heather is higher, isn't it? ... I seem to remember legally you can sell it as long as it's less than 23%
Check that. My memory (or Google-fu) isn't much good and I don't have any real experience of preparing heather honey.

[Bridget]

Yes it is higher for heather but we have got very poor heather this year. What with the poor weather and the heather beetle it’s really not been great. None of the supers we put on for the heather have much in them so it’s mainly blossom and of course I have to check that as we were having to feed syrup in June. What with queens off the lay in June, then disappearing queens, drone laying workers and queenless hives that refuse to make a queen from frames ( in one case three frames and still no sign of eggs]. It’s been a funny old year. [emoji23]


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[Adam]

I've taken off a number of supers this year which have a low water content and are hardly capped; I wanted to get them off and finished. Anyway, it makes extracting much easier and quicker without the need to remove the cappings before spinning out.

Can't comment on heather honey though as I don't have it.

[Bridget]

I’m going to extract the frames with higher water content separately to the rest and add some of it to the low and keep the rest for us. It will anyway be interesting for future reference to see how long it takes to start fermenting


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[steve]

Dehumidifier?

[Bridget]

Dehumidifier?

Ha ha,

“From an Apimondia statement earlier this year: Different types of honey fraud can be achieved through:

dilution with different syrups produced, e.g. from corn, cane sugar, beet sugar, rice, wheat, etc.;

***harvesting of immature honey, which is further actively dehydrated by the use of technical equipment, including but not limited to vacuum dryers;

using ion-exchange resins to remove residues and lighten honey colour;
masking and/or mislabelling the geographical and/or botanical origin of honey;
artificial feeding of bees during a nectar flow. The product which results from any of the above described fraudulent methods shall not be called “honey” neither the blends containing it, as the standard only allows blends of pure honeys.

Apimondia have rejected the idea of methods being developed with the intentions of artificially speeding up the natural process of honey production through an unnecessary intervention of humans and technology that may lead to violations of honey standards. Honey fraud defaces honey’s image of being a natural product. It also affects the consumer as they are not getting the product they are paying for as a result threatening food safety and security.”

I gather they quite a few disqualifications in their honey show this year!


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