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How to determine and extract a certain type of honey

5K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  MichaelBrock 
#1 ·
Hello all, I am wondering, how do beekeepers know they are extracting a certain type of honey? I understand that if their hives are in a field of clover, that'll be clover honey, but for smaller areas, how do you figure out what honey is a certain type on the frames?
Example: A couple dozen Tupelo trees, the bees will gather from those trees, but then gather from surrounding sources too. How would one try to separate and keep as pure of Tupelo honey as they could?
 
#2 ·
Bees cover a huge area at least a 1 mile circle.... Specality honeys come form more monoculture type areas, and timely removal of honeys. with just a few trees it would be hard to collect specality honey as it would not cure in the time you need.

We do a lot of sunflower, we have to put empty supers on when it starts, and remove them as soon as the blooms vanish.... everything else we call local wildflower.
 
#4 ·
Welcome to Beesource!


> And if you could, explain what you mean by cure?

The nectar that bees collect, and then place in comb generally has a higher moisture (water) content than finished honey. So it usually takes some time for the evaporation process to work and the honey to "cure". The bees may assist this evaporation by "fanning" air through/inside the hive. Once the honey moisture content gets to a point that the bees like, then they cap the honey cells.

"US Grade A" honey has less than 18.6% moisture content:
http://www.honeytraveler.com/types-of-honey/grading-honey/
 
#8 ·
Yes, if you extract wet honey, you can store it open with a dehdrator.... As long as its not too wet... Personaly i won't extract anything less than 70% capped, and thats still wet. I would try to keep the wetter honey seperate, and if it ferments, well make some mead..
 
#16 ·
The presences of oxygen isn't what determines what the end product is. If it is fermented by yeast then the end product will be alcohol (and yeast actually needs oxygen for reproduction). If it is fermented by bacteria the the end product is an acid. In the case of vinegar, acetic acid bacteria. Many people ferment beer with their fermenters completely open to the atmosphere. The downside to this is the risk of contamination (people who use open fermenters actually want contamination by wild yeast). In the case of sugar water on our hives, any fermentation would be by whatever wild yeast or bacteria happened to get in. Airlocks/bubblers are used on jugs to permit the carbon dioxide that fermentation produces to escape without letting wild yeast and bacteria get in.

Off topic, but I felt I had to clarify :D
 
#13 · (Edited)
Back to the original OP.
Varietal honey can be accumulated on a small scale by the frame. When the desired source first starts, find and mark frames that are just starting to fill. You won't get 100% of the desired source under the best of conditions. Competing sources are mixed as the cells fill. To get 50% or better, the desired source must be the dominate source at the time. But the characteristics of that source will be obvious at 50%. (Taste and color)
Extract the marked frames separately.

The typical nectar source lasts for two weeks or more. Even a medium strength colony can fill and cap a frame in 2 weeks during main flow.

We collected some wild blackberry last season this way. Wild BB is my favorite table honey. A little tart from the sourness of the berry. Competing at the time was curly vetch. The honey we got tastes like BB. Four miles away, at the village, the vetch would have been dominate. Out here in the country, we have more BB than vetch.

Years ago, when we pollenated apples, we had apple-flavored honey. Don't know if it is generally known that fruit bloom can yeild the fruit flavor in the necter. The bloom is often on the starting bulb of the fruit.

Walt
 
#15 ·
You have to keep track what is in bloom near each bee yard. For instance, I place some of my hives near a lavender field and know that it usually blooms about the third week of June and then is harvested the first week of August. I always pull the honey when the lavender is being cut down because the hives will start collecting alfalfa nectar August through early September.
 
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