This time I'm continuing my never ending search for how to dry out a honey crop. I'm expecting a good Cabbage palm harvest in about two weeks, the "hurricane that wasn't" didn't slow down the bloom in my area and the girls are cranking. Anybody who has harvested Cabbage palm honey in Florida during the middle of August knows it can run at 20% moisture even when fully capped. Well I went and asked my wife if I could take over the spare bathroom, set up a dehumidifier, fans, catch trays and move the supers into the bath tub. I really didn't think it would fly but to my surprise she said sure, go ahead but don't make a mess. LOL This will be interesting. I'll post updates as I go along.
Quote from: Beeboy01 on August 05, 2020, 10:22:15 PM
This time I'm continuing my never ending search for how to dry out a honey crop. I'm expecting a good Cabbage palm harvest in about two weeks, the "hurricane that wasn't" didn't slow down the bloom in my area and the girls are cranking. Anybody who has harvested Cabbage palm honey in Florida during the middle of August knows it can run at 20% moisture even when fully capped. Well I went and asked my wife if I could take over the spare bathroom, set up a dehumidifier, fans, catch trays and move the supers into the bath tub. I really didn't think it would fly but to my surprise she said sure, go ahead but don't make a mess. LOL This will be interesting. I'll post updates as I go along.
:grin: Yes it will be interesting in every way; including if you make a mess! lol :shocked:
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Have you done this before? It will likely be a mess. You will need mineral spirits to clean it up and some scented soap if the wife doesn't like the smell.
I have had to dry my honey several times. Use the dehumidifier to get the air as dry as possible. If possible, have it drain into the sink or tub. Here in Florida the tank will fill very fast. Extract the honey and put it in buckets. Put a valve on the bottom of one of the buckets. In the drying room, drip the honey, with a very fine drip line, from one bucket to another. The longer the drop the better. You can add a weak fan blowing across the stream to increase drying.
Test the honey before bottling.
Jim Altmiller
Beeboy the following is from a conversation on your topic a couple years ago. How did that batch turn out?
Beeboy01
> Pulled some boxes over the weekend and ended up with three shallows full of capped comb. Just for the heck of it I checked the moisture content of the honey in different frames. I was a bit surprised at the difference, some came in at 18% while others were as high as 21%. I've set them up in a small air tight room with a fan and dehumidifier to dry out over the next two or three days. Going to monitor the moisture content in different frames just to see how well the setup works if it works at all.
Do to inefficiency a dehumidifier will raise the temperature of a room",you are correct with that statement Ace. When I first tried drying honey using a dehumidifier two or three years ago I didn't run an air conditioner and had the room heat up to almost 95 degrees in about eight hours.
I was trying to dry buckets of honey at the time with the stir method and found that there wasn't enough surface area to make it effective. That is why I dried this batch of honey while still in the comb. Even capped honey will give up moisture in a dry environment with a good air flow over it.
We recently did 5 gallons with cheese cloth over bucket with box fan blowing out of the bucket for 6-8 days and got it from 20% down to 17-18 in about 6-8 days in side our home with the ac on. It took some time but it worked, there are some better ways out there but it worked
If your were unsuccessful in reducing the moisture content, how long would it be before the honey would begin fermenting once extracted?
You are all wasting your time!
Take the high moisture honey and make mead out of it, you will get more pleasure out of the mead than trying to dry honey.
Buy some champagne yeast and a barrel with an airlock.
Quote from: Oldbeavo on August 07, 2020, 05:59:08 AM
You are all wasting your time!
Take the high moisture honey and make mead out of it, you will get more pleasure out of the mead than trying to dry honey.
Buy some champagne yeast and a barrel with an airlock.
Exactly!
May I suggest a tart cherry melomel (mead with fruit). Heaven in a glass.
Some folks may find this helpful. Provides some numbers to target.
https://youtu.be/71yz80-fvkw
Good stuff Mr HP. I noticed Ian Stepples using one of those moisture testing devices in a recent video blog. He mainly harvests Canola honey. He did not have a problem on the video with a high moisture content, even on the frames that were not completely capped as he tested the uncapped area and all was good. Is moisture a situation that you have had to deal with, or sometimes deal with in your area? Thanks for the post.
Quote from: Oldbeavo on August 07, 2020, 05:59:08 AM
You are all wasting your time!
Take the high moisture honey and make mead out of it, you will get more pleasure out of the mead than trying to dry honey.
Buy some champagne yeast and a barrel with an airlock.
I have done this also and made some fine mead.
Quote from: Ben Framed on August 07, 2020, 12:33:03 PM
Good stuff Mr HP. I noticed Ian Stepples using one of those moisture testing devices in a recent video blog. He mainly harvests Canola honey. He did not have a problem on the video with a high moisture content, even on the frames that were not completely capped as he tested the uncapped area and all was good. Is moisture a situation that you have had to deal with, or sometimes deal with in your area? Thanks for the post.
I usually have issues mid summer with low moisture, making the honey more difficult to extract and flow. Generally running 14.8 - 16.4 here. Later in the season when temperatures are cooler the RH tends to go up, and we are pulling sooner to beat the end of season weather switch. At that time the honey approaches 17.5
HP and BeeBoy need to mix their honey crops and get the perfect mix between waterlogged and dry!
They blend wine, don't they?
:cheesy:
HP,
Good video. Thanks.
Here in Florida most years, our honey averages 19%. I usually have to dry my honey although this year I pulled it earlier than usual and it was 16.5 percent. If I did not dry it I would not have any honey after about one month.
I suspect the bees get into a lot of palm nectar during the end of June beginning of July.
Palm nectar is very wet, even when capped.
Jim Altmiller
Bob Binnie also has a GOOD video that I HIGHLY recommend. . Even though he does it in a commercial environment, The same principles should be easily applied on a hobbyist level.
Quote from: sawdstmakr on August 09, 2020, 01:58:21 PM
HP,
Good video. Thanks.
Here in Florida most years, our honey averages 19%. I usually have to dry my honey although this year I pulled it earlier than usual and it was 16.5 percent. If I did not dry it I would not have any honey after about one month.
I suspect the bees get into a lot of palm nectar during the end of June beginning of July.
Palm nectar is very wet, even when capped.
Jim Altmiller
Jim do you find that the bees don?t cap a lot in North Florida, in central I get some capped but never like I see up north
After posting this I realized this is not the video that I had in mind. Somewhere in his videos is a more in depth explanation of how and why he drys honey. Sorry I could not find it.
https://youtu.be/B2-w4P8BPsQ
Ok, I found it
https://youtu.be/qAat1XQ-yiI
This guy is obviously a commercial packer but I don't like his drying room. I think it is very substandard. When ever you blow air around a food item it should be filtered air and the room should be a "clean room" able to be washed down on a schedule. The drying machine, extracting machine and filling machines are all self contained. They do not expose the honey to all the dirt and germs of an open wind tunnel. In the past I have built drying rooms and drying machines for medical products. If air is involved it is always filtered.
I am surprised to see a honey packer spending a fortune on a fancy dehumidifier when all he needs is a common central air conditioner that will do the job ten times better.