Just removed my mothers flow super for winter. It is 85% full of mostly capped honey- unfortunately the honey has partially candied in the frames. We plan to try and warm the frames to 40c-42c for a few days- and are hoping that will liquefy the honey. Has anyone done this? I tried once before by leaving a super in a car parked outside during very hot weather- it didn’t really work- even though I had it in there for a few days. I thought that would work as my guess was the heat in the car was over 45c during the day… I am hoping the only reason it didn’t work was that the temps were not sustained long enough to get right into the core of the honey In that instance I gave that super to a hive of bees to eat- it took them nearly a month though to eat the candied honey. Not ideal.
We plan to use a reptile enclosure thermostat with ceramic infrared heating lamps in an insulated cupboard to gently warm the entire super - it seems the honey should de-crystallize and I don’t think 40C would hurt the flow frames? Has anyone tried anything similar?
Hey Jack, I guess because of my warm winter and regular extracting I haven’t had honey candy in the hives. But I like your idea of slowly heating the honey to 40c which will do no harms to the Flow Super frames.
Cheers, Peter
I envy you and Jeff with your endless spring climate- we din’t have any issues with honey candying until this last 12 months. Not sure why it is happenieng now- if it’s related to the weather or what the bees are foraging on- or both (likely). It is a pain. I know with traditional frames some beekeepers just soak the frames in water and lose the honey- as it’s too much of a hassle to do anything else.
Has anyone tried what we are planning with traditional frames? Does it work?
I might be wrong in my thinking Jack, but with the lack of humidity I wonder if the honey candies easier? Food for thought.
I do have a Winter, it is when I wear jeans when working on my hives, and even a bee suit is worn for warmth. During the warmer weather it is just so uncomfortable to wear a bee suit with dehydration being an issue.
I recall that when I was living down south I would place a lead light, like, a light bulb in a wire cage with a metal shield on one side to stop the light shining is your eyes, inside a super box and a box of frames on top to warm the honey. I’m not evem sure if the lead light set up is even sold these days. Yesterday was down to 25c at my apiary and nights dawn to a cold 18c.
Cheers Peter
Maybe- we also often get honey with a very lower water content- between 13.5 and 16. I am not sure if honey candies faster when the moisture content is lower, but I am guessing it does? I also think our cold nights are related- when an entire super cools right down overnight- a lot less bees stay on the honeycombs and go downstairs. Once cold it takes a long time for the mass of honey to warm again- and I am guessing this can lead to candying. Mums hive was actually robbed a few months back- so this candying occured over autumn- which we havn’t seen in previous years. However: the same frames had some candied honey coming out of winter- and perhaps some crystals have remained in the cells the entire time (despite several succesful harvests) andf these have acted as crystal seeds.
We have candied honey in our flow hive because we have not been able to harvest for some time.
Question will the bees use the candied honey as food over winter and then fill with new honey in the Springtime.? Or do we have to do something else to get the flow hive working again
Yes but if your queen excluder is in place, the bees will move up and the queen could get lonely (freeze to death). If you don’t have the QX in place then she will likely lay drones in the flow frames, which is also not pleasant. They may also gum up the frames with excess propolis.
There have been various discussions, like you’ve found, about removing candied honey by warming (but not too hot) and harvesting.
Worst case scenario, if those methods don’t work for you or aren’t feasible and you can’t liquefy it to harvest off the hive, you can scrape the cappings and wash it out.
But bottom line is that candied, water solvable honey is easier to deal with than brood or propolis.
