I am very interested to hear from those of you who have a refractometer and test the water content of your honey.
I extracted separately from two frames yesterday, one which I know was fully capped and the other which I knew was about 90% capped. Weirdly, the frame that was capped tested at 19%, while the uncapped frame was 17.5%. The hive has been robbed regularly this season, so the only thing I can think of is that the bees may have moved honey up from the broodbox for the frame with lower water content?
I do have a refractometer, and I use it regularly. I am going to assume that your refractometer was calibrated on the day that you used it, and that it was at the same temperature as the honey?
Some capped (ripe) honey may be over 18% water, depending on the forage source. Nothing you can do about that, except use it yourself if you care about regulations concerning selling honey with more than 18.6% water. On the other hand, 19% is not that far from 18.6% and a few degrees of temperature difference could account for that…
I don’t think that moving honey around would account for a high water content in capped honey. Honestly, if it was capped, I would think it is perfectly good honey.
