I was doing some thinking with capped honey fermenting. We saw that this summer and as far as anyone can figure, they blame it on the humidity. Here is the link to see some pics of my frames bubbling this summer. http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,29392.0.html (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,29392.0.html)
This was my thinking and you all can tell me what you think about it. Right now goldenrod is coming in, but we are feeding heavy syrup. I was thinking that if you pack heavy syrup over the thin nectar, the syrup will turn to honey before the nectar under it and get capped. If in the summer, they were bringing in nectar, then robbed some honey from somewhere, they would have put the honey in the cells on top of the nectar, then capped it thinking it was cured. Could we be causing the bees to do the same again by feeding in the fall?
Did you eventually determine that the honey had indeed fermented? I never heard the end of the story.
Scott
I have not had any of the jars pop yet. I combined the 4 or 5 frames with 5 gallons of honey and bottled it. I have about half in plastic 1 pound jars in a box waiting. Sold the rest for mead. I don't know how long to wait. We are eating the honey ourselves out of that box.
Allen,
Is there any taste difference to the bubbly stuff? If it tastes the same as all the rest of the harvest, i.e. good capped stuff, I wouldn't be too concerned.
It was all good. This year's honey was very light in color. My wife says she can tell the difference between this years and lasts, but I think it is all the same. I ate it on my wheat rolls yesterday at dinner. Finger licking good.
allen, i had 30 to 35 frames that had blisters the size of quarters on them.it was like 50 cells that the cap broke away from the cells and made i big cap.i guess the gasses in the fermented honey did that,and had single cells the same way. it didn't look nothing like yours.the taste was bad and had a smell to it. i have pics of it ,will try to post them for you. ...schawee
I was just wondering why it happens (bees capping too soon) and how to keep it from happening. Bees will not cap too soon, but if the wet honey is at the bottom of the honey cell, with cured honey near the surface, they would not know. This was the only thing I could come up with.
I'm here in Florida and today I went to inspect my hives hoping to find some boxes to extract. 2 of my hives had areas of capped honey looked bulgy or raised up. Some were small areas , some were larger patches. I opend those ares and there were tiny bubbles in the honey and it seemed thinner than usual. My wife and I tasted a little and it didn't taste bad so much as had a little tang to it. I think it must have fermented there in the cells. But WHY? It certainly is humid down pretty much all the time here but our area hasn't any rain in a while. We did go from very hot to a relatively cool spell for several days. The whole frames aren't affected but I'm not sure I can use any of it. From the different posts on the subject I guess there isn't a clear answer to why this happens. Any other thoughts?