taking raw honey

[mixofsam]

Do you really need to wait until most of the honey frames are capped or can you extract raw honey without any issues (fermentation, taste..???)?
Thanks.

[honeybeekeeper]

http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...apped+honey%3F

Here is a thread that talks about uncapped honey that might help!

[mixofsam]

Thanks for the link. Looks like the take home message is there is no hard/set rule on this!

[StevenG]

A refractometer is a great help (gotta buy one myself, one of these days), but you have to be careful with uncapped honey as a general rule.

If most of the super is capped, and the uncapped part does not shake out at all when you turn the frame upside down and shake it, it probably has had enough moisture removed from it to be ok.

Unsealed honey that is too liquid, has too high of a moisture content, will ferment, and then you've got other problems. The gas pressure generally pops the lid, or oozes out, making a nice mess. Plus the fact that the honey is basically ruined.
Regards,
Steven

[sqkcrk]

A generally held hard fast rule amongst most bkps that I know is that if 75% of the combs, or 75% of a comb, is covered in cappings, it is ready to extract w/out fear.