Lowering moisture in honey

[HoneyBuzzard]

Hello everyone. I am new here and want to say "great site!"
My question is, I have a hive that right now has 6 medium supers on it. Two days ago I took off three of them to extract (the other three were only about 2/3 capped and I was going to leave them for a while). When I got the three in to get ready to extract, The moisture was high on 2 of them and 18% on the other. I extracted the one and put the other two back on the hive to "dry up a bit. Can anyone tell me about how long I should leave them on the hive before I check them again?
Another question I had is that the one super that I got extracted was very dark compared to the light honey I am used to getting off of the hives. I tested the other two supers I had off and they were very light sitting directly below the dark honey in the hive. Would this just be due to different flows? I bottled up 36 12oz bears and 3 2# jars of this dark honey and expect to get some lighter stuff in a while. This will be a nice variety. Thank you for any answers you may be able to provide!!

[Billy Y.]

You might provide some ventalation for those supers with the green honey you put back on the hives. Give the bees plently of ways to remove that moisture. Provide shims or skew the boxes so that there are gaps to allow air flow. It's pretty humid in Kansas right now so they need all the help they can get.

Check them in about a week. Look to see if the cells are all capped.

[HoneyBuzzard]

Thanks Billy, I will try and give them some ventilation. However, on the two I had off that were not ready yet, They were 100% capped on all of the frames. If I didn't have a refractometer, I would have extracted this based on the general rule of being mostly capped.

[Cyndi]

We have high moisture here in the mountains. I take the supers off, place them in a room with fans, a space heater and a de-humidifier. Run for a day or 2, extract and let settle in the tank for a day. Mine has been in for 2 days now. It works great. Depending on your area, sometimes, putting the supers back on the hive does not change the moisture content - period. At least that has been my experience where I live, which again, is a high moisture area.

Good luck

[Billy Y.]

Hmmmm.

I'm not sure but I think they can still reduce moisture in the capped honey provided they get that ventilation.

Another option is to take the capped supers and put them in a room with a dehumidifier and a fan to move air. Stack the supers on thier ends so air flow can get through the frames. Position the dehumidifier and fan so the supers are between the dehumidifier and fan with the fan pulling air through the supers.

With this method you should check the moisture once a day.