Honey Harvesting Process, from Start to Finish

[@viklund2725]

Try scraping the wood of the upper frame 3 sides before you scrape off the wax caps, But it's lovely to see what can then become honey in a jar or mead that runs down the throat. Try flavoring with lingonberries, the girls usually love ;) alla fall min mjöd här i norra Sweden

[@oneeyehives]

Hello from Pennsylvania in the states. Really enjoyed the video. As a beekeeper I thought I would share some information that you might find useful. The difference between capped and uncapped honey is the moisture content. The bees dry the honey to a water content of around 17% or lower and then cap it. Capped honey will no longer support any bacteria or other organisms so it does not ferment and is why they have found honey in Egyptian tomb that was still good. Honey that is uncapped has a higher water content and can ferment. The common way to deal with uncapped honey is to mix it with capped honey to mitigate the moisture or beekeepers will use dehumidifiers to dry the honey either in the bucket or in the comb prior to extraction. Running the uncapping knife over the uncapped cells really has no advantage at all. It would probably be faster actually to use a bread knife to do the uncapping. It seems like using the heated knife you’re going much deeper into the comb than necessary which means a lot more honey in the uncapping tank and ultimately gets trapped in the wax. You’d be surprised how much honey you loose in the wax that gets leached out in the rendering process. As to the allergic reaction, I assume there is heat involved in the mead making process. Once honey gets to 110 degrees it starts to kill off everything beneficial in the honey. I do not remember the amount of time but it’s relatively short time frame that the honey is basically turned into just sugar water. That is probably why you have no reaction once it is in the mead state.

[@esquimaltvermouth]

Thanks for the info!! A good percentage of the honey we extracted was upcapped, but once it was all blended together in the drum the final moisture % was right on 18% so pretty happy with that - I also ran a dehumidifier for a week before and during extraction so I'm sure that helped I think you're right and our uncapping knife isn't the greatest and goes too deep. I'll try a good bread knife next! But having excess honey in the uncapping table/cappings isn't a big deal for me as I just rinse them with water and ferment the honey water into mead anyways, so it all goes to the same place The highest we heat our honey to is 38C (100F) just to get it liquid enough to pump. I still get an allergic reaction to the must (unfermented honey/water mixture, but after fermentation I dont. I have a pollen allergy so I think what is happening is the pollen is attaching to the yeast and bentonite we use and is falling to the bottom of the tank with the rest of the sediment so when we rack off the clear mead, the pollen is left behind. I also make honey kombucha too (using up the pollen/wax rich foamed honey that rises to the top of the honey drum after sitting around) and the same thing happens, no reaction after fermentation Thanks again for the info!! Super helpful :)

[@oneeyehives]

@@esquimaltvermouth thank you for the information. I love the DIY approach to your process. Much success to you and your business.

[@andrewwoods5493]

The rounded recess appears to be for scraping the outside of the bucket lip allowing for the lip seal.

[@paradisapiariesfsj]

Great to see getting it done and having fun at it. 👍

[@esquimaltvermouth]

Had a blast! :) Got another video coming shortly of rendering the wax too, much improvement to be made on our end for next year. Lots of learning this year, thanks again for the great honey!!

[@VonWafer_]

Do you clean the treys after extrating honey?

[@KojuBeverages]

Greetings Esquimalt, Thanks for showing this process. I've been buying honey from same source for 3 or 4 years now and I've always asked for honey that is high in pollen because I always thought that protein-rich pollen is good source of nutrients for the yeast. My mead takes approx 150 days to ferment at room temperature, even the 0,5 L test batches. Recently I started to wonder if I should ask for more clear honey. Do you ferment all the honey from the harvest or just the clear part? Cheers

[@esquimaltvermouth]

The only honey filtering I do is through a kitchen sieve, the rest of the debris settles out during ageing and after racking is crystal clear, so I ferment honey straight from the comb basically. I even rinse my wax cappings with water to get more honey out and ferment that too. Regarding nutrients/fermenting, check out TOSNA protocols and the Modern Mead Making Group on Facebook, that group and tosna are some of the best resources I've found and will help tremendously in making good mead and healthy ferments. Honey doesn't have enough nutrients to make the yeast happy so it's modern practice to now add nutrients. I use Fermaid-O fed over a 4 day period. I also add pure O2, to 12-15ppm, at pitch, at 12hrs and finally at 24 hrs. I ferment from 1.098 to complete dryness, 0.991, in 4 weeks at 16C :)

[@oneeyehives]

The color of honey has almost nothing to do with the pollen but is dependent on the nectar source. In the spring honey generally has a light color from sources like clover and trees. In the fall is typically when you get those dark amber colors from plants like Asters and goldenrod.

[@DialedN_07]

While I agree that a yield of 30lb of honey per hive is low and not sustainable for a business, 300lb per hive is exceptionally high estimate and *almost unattainable. Also Im curious about your process of scrapping all of the comb. As it takes about 8lb of nectar to make 1lb of wax, youre really setting yourselves back by not allowing the bees to reuse the comb (yes I understand the regulations but its very unfortunate). Since youre scrapping all of the wax anyway, I believe you would be better off using a honey/wax seperator and just scraping all of the comb off of the frame from the get go. The extractor in this case is just an unnecessary step

[@lordsmobileigg8890]

I am yr 115