I have five buckets of honey from last season that have all candied now. I’ll need to liquefy them to jar them. Does anyone have a simple idea for how I can do this? I am thinking I might have to fill the bath with warm water and maybe get an immersion element with a thermostat to keep it warm for long enough… or make a warming cabinet out of an old fridge or similar. What do you do?
what temperature is ideal for doing this?
Stick them out in the sun. Works for me on canola honey so should work on any candied honey.
Cheers
Rob.
40C should be plenty. It may take a day or two if the buckets are large. In the US, beekeeping supplies places sell low temperature heating bands for exactly this purpose.
http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/5-Gallon-Pail-Heater
However, I have heard of people sticking an old incandescent light bulb in a cardboard box with the honey, and using that to reheat it.
Being a boutique kind of person, I have a sous-vide water bath for cooking, which is accurate to less than 0.5C. I would probably use that if I hadn’t decanted all of my honey already. 
That’s the type of solution I was looking for- easy peasey. I suppose it would have to be quite a sunny day, you’d have to take it in at night- and the process would take a few days?
Lately it’s very cold here at night- 5-10 c
Maybe an electric blanket would work? 
Actually that’s not such a bad idea! I have an electric throw rug type thing… could be perfect…
This time of year is perfect for the sun trick. In summer its too hot but now it works a treat. Taking it in at night is worthwhile.
Cheers
Rob.
We put jars and buckets of honey on a heated garden mat and cover them with a heavy bath towel.
If you envisage this to be a yearly problem then it is simple to make a warming cabinet from an old refrigerator heated inside with a tube heater wired to a thermostat. A decent fridge should hold six buckets easily.
I just finished this little cabinet for a single bucket after having a crystallization issue over winter, thermostat from eBay and light globe from Bunnings.
A question for the science buffs: I noticed that that thermostat switch has a waterproof temp probe- which made me wonder if water would be a better medium to heat than air- as in more efficient? You can get heaters for fish tanks- and I’m wondering if I could submerse my buckets in a warm bath- in a bathtub or large plastic tub? Is that a stupid idea?
Not a stupid idea at all
I have a heated tea urn. It takes one 30lb bucket comfortably and is quicker than a warming cabinet. I always use it if I have just the one bucket to do. Fill up to three quarters of the height of the bucket and it’s done in a day
Well one possibility is to rig that thermostat switch to a small pump linked to one end of a roll of back poly-pipe full of water sitting in the sun (or buried in an active compost heap). Put your candied honey in a second bucket with an outflow to one end of the black poly. Set your desired temp with the probe in the same bucket as the candied honey and it will pump the hot water from one to other until the desired temp is reached. Fun for a science experiment…
I like the idea of using solar power to get the job done… I’d want my pump to be solar too…
With the electricity prices rising skyhigh, you’d want to go solar with everything. We live out bush and alternative power was always our only option, so we are solar for 35 years. Even our business in town has the roof covered in solar panels, so that takes care of daytime power needs, 20 air conditioners and computers etc.
Solar is sure the way to go in our sunny country. Just saying.
I rent and hate that I can’t get solar panels. I agree 100%
Our house is grid switched. Off the grid when when our batteries (now 7 years old) are charged enough or at least acting as capacitors 
and then at night when the batteries are low we switch back to the grid (unfortunately we were told by our battery supplier that it was fine to discharge deep-cycle batteries to 46V, yeah… but it trashes them). So, I guess if I run that pump from the thermostat switch during the day then it is a solar pump! 
Still say, stick them out in the sun, then its fully solar.
Plus it’s by far the easiest solution! You had me at ‘stick then outside in the sun’. I’ll put them all out tomorrow!
