I got home from work yesterday and discovered several thousand honey bees gathering around the outside edge of my 12X24 storage shed. I thought that it was a late swarm. I went to investigate and discovered that they were trying to get inside the shed. I looked in the shed which is where I stored my recently extracted honey.
I found that one of my 1 gallon glass jugs (filled with honey) had exploded. We had a heat index of 109 for the past 2 days. I have never had this problem before. I opened the shed doors and let the bees recycle what was on the floor. It was a very big mess.
I did have 2 other 1 gallon glass jugs that I opened the lids and they hissed under pressure. I released the pressure and moved them to a cooler location.
Has anyone else ever experienced exploding honey????
Never heard of this unless fermenting!!!
Sounds like you may have had some fermentation going on. I would like to hear others experience with this.
I can tell you as an avid home brewer, containers WILL explode if excessive fermentation takes place inside. At those temperatures, it will not take long.
I believe one of your girls is an explosives expert, they're robbing it back :-D
Quote from: sc-bee on August 12, 2009, 09:42:50 AM
Never heard of this unless fermenting!!!
Sounds like you may have had some fermentation going on.
That was my first thought as well. Did you have a lot of uncapped frames when you extracted? Maybe high humidity that hindered the bees getting the moisture content down?
I had a beekeeper in Fla tell me that the bees are making a lot of honey off the invasive chile pepper bushes. About the only good thing to say for the species. He said the honey would blow the tops off the containers at times. Sounds like a similar problem.
This sounds like something the SEA BEE's would do!
Quote from: Tucker1 on August 12, 2009, 05:18:18 PM
This sounds like something the SEA BEE's would do!
:-D Go Navy!
Quote from: c10250 on August 12, 2009, 10:34:23 AM
I can tell you as an avid home brewer, containers WILL explode if excessive fermentation takes place inside. At those temperatures, it will not take long.
Leaving honey, in whatever kind of container, in areas of high heat and/or direct sunlight will almost always induce frementation.
I had mostly capped frames when I extracted the honey. I do have some habenaro, serano, and chile peppers in the garden but not enough to make a difference in the honey.
This one has me stumped. I dont think my bees have any explosive training, but you never know.
At least the bees benifited and helped me to clean up the mess.
Did you cap the jugs when it was relatively cool? I'd guess that the thermal expansion combined with the rigid container was a bad combination.
Rick
I did cap the jars when they were cool.
Thanks that must have been the problem.
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on August 13, 2009, 01:55:06 AM
Leaving honey, in whatever kind of container, in areas of high heat and/or direct sunlight will almost always induce fermentation.
Really? I didn't know that.
Brian, once again you've taught me something!
the EOD bees have diagonal stripes.
Its out there and you should be aware.
:roll: