Heating Honey--easiest way?

[oregonbeekeeper]

A friend and I have about 5 gallons of honey to harvest this year and bottle.

What is the easiest way to heat the honey up so it won't chrystalize? We don't have an old freezer to convert... and we don't want to heat each bottle up individually.

Any suggestions? Should we invest in one of those 5 gallon bucket strap on heaters?

Thanks!!

[Russ]

Just a thought but would a water bed heater for this.

[Michael Bush]

It will taste much better if you don't heat it. I never do until AFTER it crystalizes IF it crystalizes.

[Iowabeeman]

The strap heaters are a bum deal. The heat in too concentrated in one area. When we first atarted bottling honey, we made a plywood box and lined it with styrofoam. Any kind of sheet insulation will work, though. We used a 75 watt lightbulb for a heat source. We had the light bulb on a timer. It gets too hot if the light bulb is on all the time. Untill we figured out the heat cycle, we used an indoor outdoor thermometer to monitor the temperature of the honey. If you have a bottling bucket with a spigot at the bottem, you can just take the bucket out of the heater and bottle the honey. The box was just big enough to hold a five gallon bucket.

[dandelion]

I used a good cardboard box (from a dehumidifier) big enough to fit the five gallon bucket with plenty of room around. I wired a 90 watt lamp and a switch that cuts off the power to the light at a certain temperature (if you don't have such switch, I would just set a 40 watt lamp or even 25w and leave on all the time, and see what temperature you get inside the box). I set it to about 80F-85F. During the Winter, when the room was at about 50 degrees the light was on often (hating up the room too...), but now obviously is not. Just take the obvious precautions so that the bulb is not too close to the cardboard. I also put a couple of bricks on the bottom so that the buckets are off the floor allowing for more air circulation. For the top I cut a 1/2 piece of foam insulation I had sitting around. If you want it fancy, make a box of plywood and put foam insulation in the inside!
Alejandro

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