Extracting or processing your honey for exhibition or sale

A talk by Mike Hunt of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Date: Thursday 18 April 2002

Venue: Church Rooms, Stow on the Wold

Top Quality for all honey

Irrespective of whether honey is for the local shop, the Women’s Institute or Show, it should all be top quality. The sole difference is the final inspection. In a Show, the Honey Inspector would look for tiny bubbles at the bottom of the jar.

Our bees create a wonderful product. We have a responsibility to ensure that this product is wonderfully presented.

When is honey ready for extraction ?

If honey or nectar is taken off before bees seal it, there will be too much moisture in what is extracted. The bees know exactly when to seal it. To see this for yourself, take out a frame when it is 2/3 rds sealed and shake it. Nectar will shake out of it so put it back. This nectar needs to be converted into honey.

Only consider for extraction when 7/8 ths of the frame is sealed. And still give it a shake!

Granulation and Oilseed Rape

If you are likely to experience granulation of Oilseed Rape honey, prepare for this by using cut-comb foundation

OR

Make sure that you get the Supers with this honey off, extracted and back on again quickly.

Granulation occurs if the temperature falls below 54 degrees Fahrenheit. If there are bees around it all the time, this will not occur. However, if it gets cold at night bees will drop away from the Super combs into the brood and granulation occurs.

What to do when you are ready to extract from the Supers

To get honey from Supers into Jars, the following equipment is required

· Un-capping method

· Extractor

· Stainless steel strainers

· Fine plastic mesh strainers

· Settling tank

· Dehumidifier (optional)

The Extractor and Settling Tank must adhere to Food Regulations if the honey is to be sold to the public. They must be Stainless Steel or Food Quality Plastic. Tin-plate is not acceptable.

The frames are uncapped and then placed in the Extractor. Honey is spun off and collects in the bottom of the Extractor.

Run the honey off into Food Quality Plastic Buckets.

The honey can then be heated to ease the straining process. It is important not to overheat it and ruin it. Commercial honey is flash-heated to between 150-180 degrees Fahrenheit. This prolongs the shelf-life, ensures the honey will stay clear but kills all the enzymes in the honey.

Mike heats his honey to that which the bees take it to - 96 degrees Fahrenheit. To do this he uses a home-made heated comprising a wooden box containing two 40 Watt bulbs topped with a wire mesh and a polystyrene top-box. Buckets take 2 days to warm on this box.

Pass the honey through Stainless Steel strainers using a large diameter mesh to remove bits of comb, frame and other large detritus then a smaller mesh for bee bits etcetera. Finally, pass it through a fine plastic mesh hat removes everything except honey and pollen.

This strained honey should be collected in a Settling Tank from where it can be run off and bottled.

A dehumidifier is also very useful running throughout this operation. Turn it on 6 hours before extraction begins. In a warm room honey flows well out of the comb but there will be lots of humidity in the atmosphere. The quality of the honey is much improved if this is removed. For example, it should prevent the frosting of honey which can occur after bottling? Frosting occurs because, if the moisture level in a room is high, the moisture gets all round the inside of the jar. The honey is poured into the jar, meets the moisture, and crystallises.

Clear liquid honey

Clear honey for show purposes needs to be quite viscous. It is divided into three categories

· Light

· Medium

· Dark

There should be no bubbles visible in clear show honey.

Occasionally a very dark Honeydew honey can be found in Supers. It is thick and viscous.

Set honey

This should look “straw colour”. If your honey is pure white, mix it with a darker honey to get the desired colour.

Soft-set or granulated honey

Honey should be spreadable. Granulated honey can get so hard that you can’t get a knife into it. So creamed honey needs to be creamed to just the right standard.

To do this, try mixing 30lbs of clear liquid good quality honey with 30lbs of good quality fine grained honey. Oilseed rape honey is good for this.

Warm up the honey to 70 degrees Fahrenheit and mix in equal quantities using a Creaming Paddle. Keep it in the bucket and pound it together until the mixture is all creamy without taking the paddle out. When paddled, let all the bubbles rise up before you bottle it.

It is a good idea to keep a little creamed honey over to start off the creaming next time. Get a 7lb bucket and keep it ready at all time. Once you get a mix that is really fine, hold onto it and use it. Get it and keep it so you can ensure the quality is there.

What is a Honey Show Judge looking for?

1. The Aroma The first thing a Judge will do is take off the lid and smell the aroma

2. Viscosity The Judge drops a glass into it and sees how much it will stretch. Willowherb honey will only stretch c.3/8ths of an inch and is very poor. Mike’s example of Honeydew honey stretches to 6 inches. However, it is tricky to bottle. When you turn off the Settling Tank tap, a long string hangs mid-air!

Other viscous honeys include Field Beans and Lime.

3. What is in the Schedule The Judge will base additional judging on the schedule. If it is NOT in the Schedule, you can do it. Common schedule requirements include

· Specification of where the label should be.

· The type of jar. Use a BS Squat Honey Jar, not a jam jar.

· Metal Lids. Change the lid just before showing and once in situ so the underside of the lid is clean when the Judge unscrews it.

· Entry in the correct class.

· Clean jars-wipe off finger prints

Final tip! Don’t bottle it the night before the show. Do it a fortnight before and warm it a couple of times in between to 96 degrees Fahrenheit to clear it of bubbles.