George Imirie's PINK PAGES
June 2003
CARE For Honey During and After Harvesting From Bees
All of us know that iron rusts if not painted, bread gets stale if left in the open,
meat has to be refrigerated, and you sunburn unless you use sun protection. HONEY IS
NO DIFFERENT! IT REQUIRES PROPER CARE AGAINST FERMENTING, or CRYSTALLIZING, or
DARKENING IN COLOR, or FLAVOR LOSS. Hence, let me mention the EASY ways for the
"backyard" hobbyist beekeeper to properly handle honey.
I think we all know the BEST honey is freshly made CAPPED COMB HONEY,
because it is protected by the CAPPINGS from increased moisture content, seeding for
crystallization by dust or debris, and protected from overheating by the bees. However,
Americans have not "learned" how to eat and enjoy COMB Honey, so the majority want
extracted honey.
You certainly should know that honey is quite HYGROSCOPIC, that is it absorbs and
condenses water vapor out of the air thereby increasing the water content of honey.
Talking in "ROUND" figures rather than specific figures, bees attempt to "ripen" honey
down to a water content of about 16% before they CAP it; and honey with a water content
over about 19% will probably FERMENT and eventually turn to vinegar. In the normal
HUMID summer of Maryland, the bees often CAP the honey at 17%-18% water content,
because they just can't lower the water content in our high humidity. WHY SHOULD YOU
KNOW THIS? First, you should NOT extract any frames of honey that are not FULLY
CAPPED or maybe 90% CAPPED, because the UNcapped honey is not fully "ripened" by the
bees and its HIGH moisture content might increase the overall moisture content of all
the honey to the point of fermentation. THIS is the reason that a honey judge at a Fair
tests your honey entry's moisture content with a refractometer, and deducts show
points for moisture content higher than 16% and possibly ELIMINATING entries with a
moisture content of about 19%. Secondly, and perhaps more important than "showing"
honey is the care given honey between the time it is extracted and the time it is bottled.
During all of that time, the honey is "open" to the atmosphere, and it is YOUR JOB to keep
it covered as much as possible, particularly during those 3-4 days that you have to let it
just SIT and settle with the FOAM and debris rising to the surface to be "skimmed off".
It is a horrible shame to ask your bees to do all "that work" of nectar collecting and
making honey, and you, by lack of knowledge or lack of discipline, let their wonderful
honey get ruined by high moisture content. DON'T GET MAD AT ME; I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU!
The majority of the American public don't understand the crystallization of honey,
think it has "gone bad", and trash it. Honey is "basically" a combination of TWO simple
sugars, glucose and fructose. At room temperatures, although fructose is a liquid sugar,
glucose is a solid sugar (like crystals). All nectar sources produce nectar that have a
specific ratio of glucose to fructose relevant to the flower that produced the nectar.
Obviously, those nectars that are rich in glucose tend to crystallize rapidly like
GOLDENROD, those with somewhat less glucose like CLOVER will crystallize less rapid,
and those with a lot less glucose like TULIP POPLAR or BLACK LOCUST are very slow to crystallize,
and TUPELO honey, which is very low in glucose, almost refuses to crystallize.
ALL crystallized honey will become liquid honey again without any damage if it is SLOWLY warmed
to about 100°. Crystallization of all honeys is EXTREMELY dependent on
temperature. In 1931, Dr. E. J. Dyce of Cornell University found that the very best
temperature to encourage honey crystallization was 57°, which should tell you that your basement
or your garage is NOT a good place to store bottled honey. Oppositely, liquid
honey can be kept in your FREEZER at -20° for years without any change, BUT NEVER IN
YOUR REFRIGERATOR! Most, not all, honeys will not crystallize at temperatures above
about 80°. However, temperatures higher than about 120° will darken you honey, and
diminish its flavor, and these changes depend on HOW HIGH is the temperature and HOW
LONG was the honey kept in these higher temperatures. Commercial honey is fast heated
to temperatures as high as 150°-160° and quickly cooled to liquefy all possible seed
crystals to give the honey long "shelf life" on the store shelf before crystallization
begins. NOW, TO GET INTO AN ARGUMENTATIVE AREA ABOUT HEAT AND NATURAL HONEY.
How high a temperature is UNnatural?
Today, there are all these "nuts" out there that want only NATURAL honey, and won't
buy or eat "heated" honey. In talking with many of them, I have found that the GREAT
majority have no idea about NATURAL colony internal temperature on a warm July day,
or the temperature that damages honey, and haven't the foggiest notion of what
temperature is used by commercial beekeepers to retard crystallization. The height of
this stupidity is quite evident when a person asks for "Pasteurized" honey that has not
been heated. I turn away, turn up the volume of my radio and listen to the Redskin foot-
ball report which makes better sense. YES, HEAT DAMAGES HONEY, but HOW HIGH is
DAMAGING HEAT? Too much salt is not good for humans with high blood pressure, but
HOW MUCH is too much? A queen bee cannot lay eggs at any temperature less than 91°
and the worker bees maintain a temperature in the brood chamber of 91°-96° irregard-
less of whether the outside temperature is 50° or 100°; and heat RISES and honey
supers are ABOVE the brood chamber. What do you think the temperature of honey supers
are on a hot July day of a colony outside in the broiling sun? Bee scientists have checked
this many times and have found honey in the supers with temperatures of 100°-110° -
WONDERFUL HIGH QUALITY NATURAL HONEY. Heat LESS than about 120° and kept at that temperature
for just an hour or so (just like nature) does NOT damage honey!
Ending: To properly CARE for your honey, don't extract frames that are not FULLY
CAPPED, keep liquid honey covered to protect it against moisture absorption, and never
heat honey higher that 120° for any reason and then for only a very short time.
"THINGS" for you to THINK about and DO
Although this is early June, August is "just around the corner" and there is SO MUCH
to do in AUGUST - I mean BEFORE SEPTEMBER, because September is TOO LATE.
Get your extraction and bottling done by JULY 4th. There is NO nectar flow in the
central Maryland area after June 1-15th. If you don't believe me, I can show you graphs
of my the weight increase of my scale hive for many years. Sometimes people see the
yellow summer clover in June and believe that it will provide honey, but it RARELY does.
When you harvest your honey, ONLY TAKE THE FULLY CAPPED FRAMES, and leave the rest
for the bees, because they might STARVE in the dearth of July and early August. Further,
FULLY CAPPED honey is fully ripened and you won't have any excess amount of moisture
in the honey that could cause spoilage and fermentation. DON'T BE GREEDY!
Demonstrate your "know-how" and your success by entering your honey in the Mont-
gomery County Fair from August 9-16, and WIN CASH MONEY plus a RIBBON. Even better
would be to enter an education exhibit about beekeeping - You are smart, have ideas, so
show the public the IMPORTANCE of honey bees in the POLLINATION of our food! How
some photographs of bees from your "fancy new camera's" and win MONEY. How about
showing a beautiful FRAME of CAPPED HONEY, and win MONEY? See pages 87-88 of the
FAIR catalog for other entries - there are all kinds!
Don't forget to VOLUNTEER just 4 hours of your time to help Barry Thompson at the
MCBA booth in OLD MACDONALD'S BARN tell the public all the good points about honey
bees and the MASSIVE IMPORTANCE of their POLLINATION of our human food! You don't
have to be a master beekeeper to answer the questions of the public. And the FAIR will
give you a FREE lunch or dinner for volunteering!
Speaking of master beekeepers, those people that attend the August 4-8 EAS meeting
in Maine will LEARN so much by attending SUPER SHORT COURSE, listening to the expert
speakers at the convention, and participating in the workshops, you might be one of our
new MASTER BEEKEEPERS shortly.
Since the TRACHEAL MITE is microscopic in size and hence INVISIBLE, many WRONGLY
surmise that their bees don't have any TRACHEAL mites so they DON'T bother to treat
for them. Lo and behold, they find their colony dead in January or February, and make
their second mistake by thinking the cold weather killed their bees. All they had to do
to KILL about 98% of all the tracheal mites was to put $2.00 of MENTHOL crystals in
the colony on AUGUST 15th when it is good and WARM. SEPTEMBER IS TOO LATE and
the menthol will not work in the coolness of September. Spend just $2.00 and save
your bees from tracheal mite death!
I know that some of you had swarms this year in April or May. They ruined your
honey crop and some lost the swarms and left your colony VERY WEAK. When are you
going to start LISTENING to ME, bee RESEARCHERS, bee SCIENTISTS, and many big
time COMMERCIAL beekeepers about real YOUNG queens RARELY SWARM, and starting
a new queen in September rather than April or May is MUCH MUCH BETTER, plus you
get better laying in September and October that produces a larger, younger crop of
worker bees to winter through the long winter? These new queens can produce
enough queen pheromone to retard queen cell construction and weld a large population
of worker bees into a well functioning unit that produces a lot of honey! However,
many queen breeders cut back queen production by the end of June, so you have to
ask your queen supplier in June whether he can supply you with new queens in mid
to late August, and if so, order them and pay for them now so delivery is guaranteed on
the August date that you name. Requeening a colony with a lot of forager age bees is
TOUGH, but if you do it by introducing a new queen to nuc of nurse bees and later
unite that nuc with the entire colony, you can usually get almost 100% success. If
you do not have a copy of my article entitled "Imirie's Almost Foolproof Requeening Method", just ask me to e-mail you one. I have used this method for over 20 years
to requeen 100's of colonies and rarely lose a queen. You CAN"T wait until the last
minute to requeen, because you have to do certain things to the colony about 10-12
days before you get the new queen. Hence now is the time to plan to do fall requeening!
By the way, a new queen that you bought in April of this year is NOT a young queen
in April of 2004, because her ability to produce large quantities of queen pheromone
that helps prevent swarming is greatly diminished, because she is a year old in
April 2004, an old lady! Why does Richard Adee, the largest commercial beekeeper
in the world with his 60,000 colonies requeen them every September in Mississippi;
or why does Dave Hackenburg, past President of American Beekeeping Federation,
requeen all of his 5000 colonies every year and some of them TWICE each year? They
will tell you that they do it to retard swarming! WHY DON"T YOU SPEND $10 FOR A NEW
QUEEN AND REQUEEN A COLONY THIS AUGUST?
I am SO P-L-E-A-S-E-D, my voice is getting stronger and stronger. Surgery was
May 1st, 3 weeks ago today and the swelling in my throat is almost gone. However,
I am going to Williamsburg for 3 whole weeks and commune with our founding fathers,
George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Tom Jefferson and learn more about the ways
that such a few men from each of the 13 colonies were able to form our GREAT Nation.
Who knows, maybe I can give some volunteer help to President Bush regarding making
our country even more satisfying as the home of the brave and the free. But none of us
can sit on our duffs and do nothing, because we will always have to fight those that are
jealous of our 200+ years of success. Has it ever ocurred to those "cmplainers" that so
many people want to immigrate to the U.S., but darn few want emigrate away from the
U. S. Must be a good reason for that. Although my ancestors came from Scotland,I am
a PROUD AMERICAN!
George Imirie
Certified EAS Master Beekeeper in my 71st year of beekeeping.
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