I’m new to beekeeping. I started for the bees. But, I’m having a lot of fun with the honey and wax too. I am trying to strain some of my honey through a 75 micron mesh bag. I am heating the honey to enhance the flow. But, even heated up the the rich honey goes real slow.
I’m trying to come up with some sort of setup to hold the bag over some sort of container to catch the honey.
Ask you local bee gear shop about a double stainless steel strainer that sits in a frame over a honey pail.
You shouldn’t need to heat the honey to filter it unless the mesh size is too small, and 75 microns sounds really small. Over heating of honey can kill some of the qualities that is much a health benefit to you.
Cheers Tom
Hey Tom,
Bees are certainly good fun and you’ll be learning for the rest of your days. I’ve quit using any strainers. To be clear, I’ve never strained Flow honey. Honey from my centrifugal extractor I now run directly into 20l buckets and leave them to settle for at least a couple of weeks. All the debris and wax floats to the top where I scoop it off. I leave it for another few days, then scoop off the last bits and to finish off I spread cling wrap over the top, pat it down, then pinch it from the centre, lifting it swiftly up and out. It’s the cleanest clearest honey ever. It sounds a bit tedious, but it’s much more convenient than waiting for clogged filters.
Mike
What are you doing with the debris & wax, as well as the honey from under the cling wrap that you scoop off? I hope it’s not discarded, that would be a waste.
I strain my honey through ss Termimesh that’s fitted to the frame of a bucket strainer after removing the original mesh that was a lot coarser.
Nothing goes to waste, Jeff. I put all the scooped material into cheesecloth bags into the extractor to get all the honey out. Then I render the the then dried wax in my steam processor. If I’m done with extracting for the season, it’s not worth doing the cheesecloth thing, so I run it through my little fruit press to get the honey out. Otherwise it sits in buckets until the next extraction day.
Mike