Small scale honey drying?

[mrspock]

Has anyone developed a method for the small scale beek to reduce the moisture content of honey?

[Robbo]

I am just finising one, and have taken some pics along the way. I'll get a thread together in a few weeks after its completed. I have proved to myself that it works though which is great.
A wet summmer here has meant wet honey for us.

I would love to see how other people do it.

I would also like to see a photo of any device to circulate teh honey from the bottom of a bucket / container to the top to increase the surface area. I have read a lot of descriptions - would prefer to see a picture if anyone has one.

[wildbeekeeper]

I usually just put my supers in a closed room with a dehumidifyer and a fan and let it run for an appropriate time, then I extract. Once its extracted its extremely difficult to reduce moisture unless you spread the honey out over a large area so that you can get evaportaion of moisture. Thats why its easier to do it while its still in the comb.

[My-smokepole]

I saw a demo last weekend that was warming frames but would work for drying. They took a small heater blowing under the boxes with a fan on top sucking out. with it all wrap in plastic. The idea is based on air drying wood.
David

[sqkcrk]

Only take it off when it is 75% capped or more. Then drying won't be necassary. I assume you checked the moisture content, since you are asking about lowering the moisture content? What is the moisture content?

[AstroBee]

This is one of those topics that comes up over and over. The solution is to harvest honey that is already dry. And if by accident, or other misfortune, dry the honey BEFORE it is extracted and in the pails. Get a refractometer, calibrate it, and use it every time. I personally have been burned by the 75% "rule" due to the extreme humidity in my region during our summer (cotton) harvest. I no longer just assume that capped honey is 18% or less. When I have to harvest and it doesn't meet the 18% requirement, I bring the supers into an air conditioned space and run fans across the frames for a couple of days. Of course the capped honey won't dry, but the surrounding uncapped will, resulting in an over all reduction so that the batch meets the 18%.

[jrbbees]

"any device to circulate teh honey from the bottom of a bucket / container to the top to increase the surface area."

Just a thought. Think of a tall box. A deep lid(like a feeder Make it 5 gal.) that has small holes in the bottom, in rows, so that honey could be poured in and it would drip down through the lid into the box.

In the box are horozonal(sp) tubes like 2" pvc pipes set so the honey drips on to the center of the tube and has to slowly run around the side of the pipe to the bottom and then drip off the bottom of the pipe on to another pipe, and then another and another, etc. At the bottom it collects into a pan and runs down into another bucket.

The box has air vents at the sides of the bottom and the top. These vents are connected to air ducts that go through a dehumidifier so that warm dry air enters the bottom of the box, flows up around the pipes with the honey running over them and out the vents at the top and is recycled through the dehumidifier that extracts the water from the air/honey.

Pipes could be 1/2" from each other on the sides and 1" top to bottom. That would allow for maximum number of pipes = maximum drain time for the honey and maximum amount of time the air would be flowing over the honey. The drip/run/drip process will cause the maximum suface area because the flow process of the dropplets will cause all parts of the 'drip' to be exposed to the air.

Would that work?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
o o o o o o o o o air out
o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o
________________ air in

Same thing could be done with metal(SS) slats I would increase the angle to 45 deg.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
/ / / / / / / / / / / / /
_\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
/ / / / / / / / / / / / /
_________________


Sorry, this won't display with the holes and pipes lined up, but I think you get the idea.