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Author Topic: Rape honey & crystallisation  (Read 5528 times)

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Rape honey & crystallisation
« on: May 15, 2014, 12:56:55 am »
Just wondering - I know rape can cause the honey to crystallise in the comb but is it any percentage? i.e. if my honey is 50% from garden flowers & 50% from rape, will is still be a problem? Or 10% rape? Anybody know?

P6te

  • Joined Jan 2012
  • South Derbyshire
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2014, 07:56:26 am »
In my experience, if you are in an area where the bees are foraging rape, it isn't worth asking will it or won't it crystallise, assume it will and the chances are you will be correct.

Pete
Live for today
Plan for tomorrow

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2014, 04:12:11 pm »
You can use the crystallisation to good effect by buying a small pot of fine grain  commercial honey and whisking that into your liquid rape local stuff to get the fine seed grains dissipated that will spread through out the bucket .
From then on keep some of the honey to one side for such purposes .

Taking things a step further try and get hold of a stainless steel " PIG TAIL"  whisk and using a decent sized power drill whisk up the fine seeded honey turning it into creamed honey .
It usually sells well .

You'll have to fill the jars almost to the top to get the correct weight though as the volume increases ever so slightly when creamed .
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2014, 09:33:18 pm »
Thanks! It's more just that we've got rape about half a mile away with plenty of other forage around so I don't know whether I need to panic about getting the supers extracted or whether I have a bit of time in hand.

H

P6te

  • Joined Jan 2012
  • South Derbyshire
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2014, 08:17:23 am »
My advise would be to extract without delay. Nothing sets as fast as Oil Seed Rape!!

Pete
Live for today
Plan for tomorrow

Anke

  • Joined Dec 2009
  • St Boswells, Scottish Borders
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2014, 04:03:18 pm »
I am surrounded by rape fields every year - so my beekeeping has adapted to it.

I do not try and extract the liquid honey as soon as possible, as I always worry there will be a hungry gap.... so I use wireless foundation in my supers and melt the honey off at the end of the season. Our association has a rapeseed honey extractor (a bit like a wax melter just bigger) and it works for me. I steam clean my empty (and usually quite sticky) frames (home made (wallpaper) steamer and old brood box) every winter.

Only drawback is that you need to re-do the frames with foundation every year and if it gets hot before they have drawn them out properly, they tend to sag a bit in the heat, causing the frames to be filled unevenly.

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2014, 08:07:33 pm »
I've just extracted and no problem with crystallisation so it obviously was far enough away to lessen the impact. The place I did it has a warmer thing probably the same as you describe Anke and had that on standby since most of the honey they've taken off this year has been crystallised.

Now to get the supers back on in time for the lavender flowering and it could be a great year! I reckon it was close on 40lb today (still filtering) from two supers in my one stable hive. Yay!

OhLaLa

  • Joined Sep 2010
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2014, 09:09:14 am »
Once rapeseed has gone into the comb, it is very likely to speed up crystallisation on the next batch.


Options: Use wireless comb and jar up the honey on the comb.
Melt the foundation and extract it that way.
Or try to get the supers off asap if you think you have a mixture in there.


You'll see what your options are as soon as you uncap. It's case of checking regularly enough to get the supers off as soon as they are capped.


HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2014, 09:32:56 am »
They honey hasn't crystallised at all. A few days after putting into jars it set and is now fairly solid but still of a creamy texture. I'll not faff around with changing foundation - it wasn't such a bad issue this time although the brood box foundation from last year still has crystallised honey in it that they haven't cleared out yet.


OhLaLa

  • Joined Sep 2010
Re: Rape honey & crystallisation
« Reply #9 on: June 11, 2014, 10:22:23 am »
One of my houses was surrounded by fields of rapeseed every year. I used the same supers each year, only having to melt them if i didn't get them off quickly enough.


The guy who farmed the crop said the area around my Apiary always produced the best yields.



Rapeseed honey. Very tasty.

 

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