Natural Honey ??

Edited by Kansas99 - 27 Feb 2021 at 10:04pm

GARY(OH/IN) wrote: Do beekeepers rent sites to put their hives if they don't have land or want to grow the business?

Got a neighbor in the county south of use that had a full section under irrigation planted to alfalfa, my partner was a class mate of his in school.  The section had a abandoned feedlot on it so a nice rock road to set hives on and when we asked him if he would mind he seemed ok with it but a day later called and said he just didn't want any bees on his ground.  So I called the neighbor across the road and of course he didn't mind.  So 50 hives were about 100 ft from the other guys alfalfa.  We called him back and told hem where they were but we couldn't control which direction they flew.   There is around 7 quarters of alfalfa both dry and irrigated there within 2 miles at all different stages and something was always blooming.  About 1/2 way into summer as the sweet clover dried up we eventually had something like 150 hives in that location, some of them were literally setting on the side of a dead end county road.  No buddy could complain about the county right of way and the maintainer just graded the road up to them.  I remember the night about 2am as I back unto that road with a 25ft gooseneck moving in hives and I accidentally hit a hive and knocked it off the pallet.  We were running deep supers for honey supers as we needed built comb for splits after extraction so a full deep super of honey can weigh close to 90#.  Anyways the hive was 7 supers high, honey and bees top to bottom and they were pissed.  There was a young guy helping us that night and he was liking the bees till then, he had a full suit and still was getting them inside it.  Only time I ever had them come after me at night on the skidloader.  If I remember right the hive was Russian bees and they aren't quite as gentle as Italians.  When we got back into the pickup the young guy said "boy that took the fun out of bees"


Edited by Kansas99 - 28 Feb 2021 at 7:25am

Phil, do they strictly do honey or do they take them south for pollination and/or maybe a easier winter as well?

Kansas99, I don't think they take them south.  Most beekeepers in this area leave enough honey in the hives to overwinter them.  They usually set up groups of hives in sheltered locations where they get the winter sun, then wrap each hive in insulation and then wrap them in black plastic and most seem to overwinter OK.  I think they would have to go a long, long way south to have any benefit! 

If your honey has crystalized it was extracted too early. The bees have it timed perfect. When moisture content is correct it will not harden. If you want to soften it up, put it inside your car on the dash. A good sunny day and it will be liquid again. It will still harden up again eventually, still has too much moisture in it. HTH Tracy

Does anyone do "comb honey" any more? My Dad loved comb  honey and, for years, I had never heard of extracted honey. 

Warm it gently. I have a band heater on a small amount in a 5 gallon bucket right now. I need to get it into some jars. If you have ever had golderod honey then you know it can crystallize in just days after it is extracted. Just the nature of that fall honey. It might have some aster in there too. We get a lot of goldenrod here in north west Pennsylvania. Hope our 5 hives have done ok through the winter.

Edited by Sugarmaker - 05 Mar 2021 at 11:32am

Bugsquirt reported...

Honey is great home remedy for sufferers of ‘acid reflux’(unless you are allergic to honey), three tablespoons of honey after meals, and with a few weeks the acid reflux will be gone. Works better than all those pharmaceutical concoctions.

Ted, put in a pan/bucket of warm water

Honey that is crystalized has too high a moisture content when packaged. Too much of it was not capped when robbed. Honey that is all capped won't get hard. If you have a jar that is hard, just set it on the dash of your car in the summer,it will liquify it again. HTH Tracy