Storage question

Mklangelo · October 03, 2008, 01:45:13 PM

I'm going to have a several frames of pollen and honey I want to use next spring to jump start the bees. How can I store them? In the fridge?

Or will the basement be good enough? It's probably around 65F down there in winter.

Thanks!

bassman1977 · October 03, 2008, 01:58:08 PM

Freezer would be best. Other will confirm, but I think if you let the honey frames out, if they aren't destroyed by mice, moths, etc., first, the honey will be bad for the bees. Some sort of chemical inside the honey will become lethal with age (to the bees, not humans). I'm not sure what the time frame is for that or what the name of it is.

1of6 · October 03, 2008, 02:12:19 PM

Quote from: bassman1977 on October 03, 2008, 01:58:08 PM
...the honey will be bad for the bees. Some sort of chemical inside the honey will become lethal with age (to the bees, not humans). I'm not sure what the time frame is for that or what the name of it is.

Uh...what?? :?

Mklangelo · October 03, 2008, 02:56:31 PM

Quote from: bassman1977 on October 03, 2008, 01:58:08 PM
Freezer would be best. Other will confirm, but I think if you let the honey frames out, if they aren't destroyed by mice, moths, etc., first, the honey will be bad for the bees. Some sort of chemical inside the honey will become lethal with age (to the bees, not humans). I'm not sure what the time frame is for that or what the name of it is.

Hmmm... that's a new one on me. Kind of scary. I had the State Apiarist over inspecting my hives last week and we decided I needed to destroy one due to high mite count and store the stuff for next year. He said nothing about that.

bassman1977 · October 03, 2008, 03:21:25 PM

Here... read the last post of this thread. I know there is more about it on the forum.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,3379.0.html

1of6 · October 03, 2008, 10:03:59 PM

That's a tough sale to make. What's the average temperature inside a hive? How long do we think the honey inside the hive is subject to those temperatures?

That's a hard pill to swallow for the folks who leave a super on their bees for insurance.

Just for argument's sake, looking at a non-peer-reviewed article - http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/hmf.html - How long do we think the honey inside the boxes will be safe for our bees? There sure isn't very much official documentation saying that a few months at room temperature renders honey in the combs toxic to bees.

Not even here: http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/mussen/11-12-04.pdf

Bassman, understand the point, but I think it's a stretch, unless we're talking about heating the honey over the winter. I think something may have been exaggerated a little from the original context. Most of what I could find the Nation Honey Board talking about with HMF was in regard to damage done by heating honey. If we think about a hive wintering over in a fairly warm state, it's not too much different than the basement environment described. You might have a difficult time talking our California beeks into taking frames out of their hives and freezing them for their bees for winter.

Better to freeze, yes. If freezer space doesn't allow for this, is this going to kill or harm your bees?

Ross · October 03, 2008, 10:33:26 PM

Honey can stay on hives for more than a year and not go bad. Anything that won't melt the wax should be fine.

Understudy · October 03, 2008, 10:43:44 PM

freeze them you will be fine.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

Mklangelo · October 04, 2008, 08:58:38 AM

Thanks everybody.

Cindi · October 04, 2008, 11:41:27 AM

Bassman1977. That was interesting, that was a very old post made in July of 2005, and made by a forum member named Pheonix, that hasn't been active since October 2006, wonder where this person went. Does anyone remember Phoenix? How on earth did you find this old post anyways, just curious.

Phoenix said something interesting about the age of honey and toxicity to the bees. I have copied the body of the post here, I know some of us sometimes can't be bothered to look at a link to a post, just that lazy side, and I speak for myself of this too, :-D ;) :) :)

Phoenix's Post:
Don't feed old honey to the bees...

Old honey contains high levels of HMF(hydroxy-methyl-furfural) which for humans, is harmless, but for bees is a poisonous drug.

New honey contains 1 to 5 mg/kg HMF. In some parts of the world it is forbidden to sell honey for human consumption with more than 40 mg/kg HMF, even though it's harmless to us.

Honey deteriorates with aging and/or heating and with this the HMF increases. Only fructose will become HMF, so depending on the variatal of honey and it's fructose content, some deteriorate faster than others.

Heating the honey will raise it's HMF contents rapidly. The longer and/or hotter it is heated, the higher the HMF levels will become. Even when honey is stored at 68 degrees it's HMF content raises 1 mg/kg per month. Heating honey to 160 degrees will raise the HMF levels to more than 30 ppm in 5 to 10 hours depending on the fructose content.

This information that he gave to a forum post was interesting, and certainly sounds like it holds some credibility. After reading this post, I was very glad that I don't heat my honey at all for extraction or crushing or straining. Anyways, just some interesting information here that was given. Have the most wonderful and awesome day, Cindi

Understudy · October 04, 2008, 12:47:47 PM

Quote from: Cindi on October 04, 2008, 11:41:27 AM
Bassman1977. That was interesting, that was a very old post made in July of 2005, and made by a forum member named Pheonix, that hasn't been active since October 2006, wonder where this person went. Does anyone remember Phoenix? How on earth did you find this old post anyways, just curious.

Phoenix said something interesting about the age of honey and toxicity to the bees. I have copied the body of the post here, I know some of us sometimes can't be bothered to look at a link to a post, just that lazy side, and I speak for myself of this too, :-D ;) :) :)

Phoenix's Post:
Don't feed old honey to the bees...

Old honey contains high levels of HMF(hydroxy-methyl-furfural) which for humans, is harmless, but for bees is a poisonous drug.

New honey contains 1 to 5 mg/kg HMF. In some parts of the world it is forbidden to sell honey for human consumption with more than 40 mg/kg HMF, even though it's harmless to us.

Honey deteriorates with aging and/or heating and with this the HMF increases. Only fructose will become HMF, so depending on the variatal of honey and it's fructose content, some deteriorate faster than others.

Heating the honey will raise it's HMF contents rapidly. The longer and/or hotter it is heated, the higher the HMF levels will become. Even when honey is stored at 68 degrees it's HMF content raises 1 mg/kg per month. Heating honey to 160 degrees will raise the HMF levels to more than 30 ppm in 5 to 10 hours depending on the fructose content.

This information that he gave to a forum post was interesting, and certainly sounds like it holds some credibility. After reading this post, I was very glad that I don't heat my honey at all for extraction or crushing or straining. Anyways, just some interesting information here that was given. Have the most wonderful and awesome day, Cindi

There is a thing we do in Wikipedia when someone posts something this.

It's called Citation Needed.

What is the source.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

greg spike · October 06, 2008, 05:15:11 PM

I doubt its a big issue. If aged honey was even moderately toxic, an old timer beekeeper would have noticed by now.
I got curious because I read something about HMf and gout a while ago.
After a quick search on the interwebs.... I could only find one bee holocaust involving HMF(hydroxy-methyl-furfural) in print, and it was from bad corn syrup fed to indoor wintered Canadian bees in 1997. The article was heavy on mights, maybes and possiblys.