[A_Bee_Guy]

I recently harvested some honey using the crush and strain method. After a few days of letting the honey strain, I took the wax, which still had honey in it, outside to wash it out (so I can put the wax in my solar wax melter).

After the first rinse, there was a high concentration of honey in my rinse water. Would this honey water be OK or even good to feed back to my bees using boardman feeders?

 

[Bees In Miami]

It is "safe" since it's their own honey, but perhaps not wise. I would suspect there isn't enough viscosity, and it may be a dripping mess. It could also trigger robbing. How about filling a large platter/cookie sheet or two with leaves and twigs, and pouring the honey water over it? Make sure they have plenty of room to land and walk around so you don't end up with a bunch of drowned bees.

For future reference, if you take that crushed wax, and spread it out really good (I use large bakery sheet pans...like they make big sheet cakes in...) the bees will clean up the honey left in the wax very quickly. You won't need to rinse. Make sure you put the cappings a good distance from your hives though. They'll find it in no time. The results will amaze you. Kind of spread it out, then toss it around to expose new surfaces as they clean what they have access to. Give them plenty of space to work so you don't end up with a war with bees trying to get into a small container. (Does this make sense? :scratch

 

[Beeonefarms]

Yes indeed.... and the girls will just repack this golden goodness for you to recrush later.

 

[A_Bee_Guy]

Make sure you put the cappings a good distance from your hives though.

What would you say was a "good distance?" I don't have a large yard.

I have tried this before, but it did trigger robbing on a couple of occasions. The bees loved it, but then they went after a weak hive and decimated it.

 

[Bees In Miami]

Put it this way...the closer the food source is to the hive, the more it may cause robbing (but that usually only happens when in a dearth). If your bees are on one side of the house, put the trays on the other side, or in the back yard, or in the front yard...wherever. You just want to make sure you aren't inviting them for the "free buffet" right close to your hives. I put the trays out on my pool deck, which puts my closest hives about 15 yards away (and on the other side of a 5' fence)...further for others. I think it's a blast to watch them clean up! And as was said, they're putting that honey right back into the hive for my next honey harvest.

 

[A_Bee_Guy]

I think it's a blast to watch them clean up! And as was said, they're putting that honey right back into the hive for my next honey harvest.

Yes, it is very cool to watch them eat the honey leftovers from crush and strain.

Thanks for the great advice. I do appreciate it.

 

[Michael Bush]

It will ferment pretty quickly. If you're going to feed it I would do it quickly...

 

[A_Bee_Guy]

It will ferment pretty quickly. If you're going to feed it I would do it quickly...

OK, that's what I was afraid of. I guess it's kind of like bottling honey that isn't capped - it ferments if the water content is too high.

 

[Michael Bush]

That white bloom you typically see on cappings is sugar tolerant yeast. As soon as the water content drops low enough and the temperature is high enough, it will start to grow...

 

[peterloringborst]

That white bloom you typically see on cappings is sugar tolerant yeast. As soon as the water content drops low enough and the temperature is high enough, it will start to grow...

Sorry Michael, but that's not true. It is a crystalline substance which is expressed by beeswax over time.

“wax bloom” This term is commonly used to describe either a white crystallic layer or aggregations of crystals, which can develop over weeks or months on the newly created surface of beeswax. These crystals can develop also on the surface of beeswax plastics, candles, encaustic paintings, beeswax-based protective layers, and more
-- Analysis of efflorescence on surface of beeswax seals. Journal of Cultural Heritage 13 (2012) 275–284

 

[Michael Bush]

>Sorry Michael, but that's not true. It is a crystalline substance which is expressed by beeswax over time.

Yes wax has a bloom. No the bloom on the caps is not that. It is sugar tolerant yeast. The white on your grapes is also yeast. The white on juniper berries is also yeast. I have cultured it many times.

 

[FlowerPlanter]

The white on your grapes is also yeast. The white on juniper berries is also yeast. I have cultured it many times.

What do you culture it for? wine?

 

[FlowerPlanter]

I recently harvested some honey using the crush and strain method. After a few days of letting the honey strain, I took the wax, which still had honey in it, outside to wash it out (so I can put the wax in my solar wax melter).

After the first rinse, there was a high concentration of honey in my rinse water. Would this honey water be OK or even good to feed back to my bees using boardman feeders?

I use it as a for mead and wine. You could use it for ice tea or cooking.
I also rince my extractor and honey buckets and use that water too.

 

[Michael Bush]

>What do you culture it for? wine?

I've cultured various wild yeasts for sourdough. It could work for mead (and was probably the original yeast used in mead)...

 

[peterloringborst]

Yes wax has a bloom. No the bloom on the caps is not that. It is sugar tolerant yeast.

The logic of this escapes me. Yeasts are everywhere in the hive, but the bloom is only on the wax. How is it not wax bloom? The fact that you can use it to ferment proves it contains yeast, not that it isn't wax bloom.

 

[Bees In Miami]

Pardon me A Bee Guy for asking a question on your thread...I will start a new thread if it starts getting activity....
Flowerplanter...If you are using honey water (rinse water) for mead, how do you know what your ratios are? I have heard this before, but could never figure how you would know when you had enough honey to water. Maybe I am too hung up on the 1 gal honey to 4 gal water? Thanks for your input.

Again Bee guy, my apologies. I still stand by my advice of letting the bees clean it out, so just trying to learn something myself.

 

[Snowhitsky]

You can use a hydrometer which measures the specific gravity of a liquid. If the rinse water is too thin, you can add honey and use the hydrometer to reach the specific gravity you need.

http://amazingmead.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/hydrometer/

 

[FlowerPlanter]

>If you are using honey water (rinse water) for mead, how do you know what your ratios are? I have heard this before, but could never figure how you would know when you had enough honey to water. Maybe I am too hung up on the 1 gal honey to 4 gal water? Thanks for your input.

As snow said a hydrometer gives you the spacific gravity of your honey water before fermintation then you take a reading after, then use a formula to figure alcohol %.

The 1 part honey and 4 parts water is a starting point and can be fine-tuned by you preferred sweetness.

The amount of honey added from an extractor and bucket rinse in not that much maybe a cup or two, and in a 5 gal batch does not make that much different if you’re added on gallon of honey.

Some of my first batch I did not have a hydrometer and they worked fine.

 

[Michael Bush]

>The fact that you can use it to ferment proves it contains yeast, not that it isn't wax bloom.

That same white powder appears on plums, grapes, figs, dates and juniper berries. I suppose that's wax bloom.