honey time?

[wyobee]

A commercial keeper in my area told me that the necter flow in our area is over by Sept 1. I have two hives full of honey that i plan on harvesting, my question is.....about 75% of the honey has been capped, do I need to wait untill it all has been capped? if so how long might that take? and what if it was harvested befor being fully capped. Thank you!

[NasalSponge]

Bees cap honey when they get the water content to around 17%. If you are 75% capped you can do the shake test, hold the frame sideways and give it a quick downward shake, if nothing comes out you should be OK to harvest. Excessive moisture in the honey will cause it to ferment.

[wyobee]

thank you I will try to shake the frames.

[RayMarler]

Bees won't cap the cells unless they are full. Sometimes you'll see cured nectar, but it does not fill the cell all the way so the bees don't cap it, the nectar flow slowed down or stopped before the cell was full. Tip the frame over on it's side in the air and give it a shake. If no wet nectar flies out and you are 75% capped then you are most likely just fine to extract.

[beedeetee]

I don't buy the shake test. When I got a refractometer I found out that I couldn't shake out 22% honey. That being said, like RayMarler said, they don't seem to cap cells that are not full so if your capped honey is 16.5% you can have quite a bit of 20% and still be okay.

Most of my (already drawn frames) that I test open cells on are well cured. If the frames have looked like they do now for a week or so I think that they have probably cured them. I think that the problem is when you pull honey during the flow and they are not capped.

[wyobee]

thank you, i should look into a refractometer.

[beedeetee]

A refractometer gives to peace of mind, but I went 20 years without one and didn't have a problem. We don't have high humidity here during the summer. I just waited for a week or so after the flow stopped and then pulled honey. And then didn't extract frames that were mostly uncapped. Now I test cells on each uncapped frame and know if I can extract it.

[nuke]

I have a bunch of frames that are mostly/all uncapped. I took them off a couple weeks after flow ended. I don't have a refractometer. Was gonna rely on the shake test but after reading other posts doesn't sound like a great idea. If I leave them in a room with the dehumidifier going for a few days will I be ok or do I need to ante up for the refractometer.
Thanks,
Nuke

[beedeetee]

I think that the shake test might be fine if you have 30 capped frames and only a couple that haven't been capped. If it doesn't shake out, it is on the way to being cured and probably won't be wet enough to overcome the 30 capped frames.

On the other hand if all of your frames are mostly uncapped, I wouldn't use the test to determine if it was safe.