Honey supers left on hives over winter

[heaflaw]

Because of health problems (mine, not the bees), I did not take honey supers off of the bees after last robbing them.  I checked the hives (13) on a warm day last week & most of the supers have at least some capped honey and a few are almost full of honey.  Will the honey be good to rob this spring or will it have granulated?  Should I leave them on and rob when they have finished filling them?  There are excluders under the supers so they are ready to go for spring supering.

[Brian D. Bray]

There are two ways of keeping honey from granulating (sugaring), leave it on the hive or freeze it.  Even pasturized honey will granulate over time.  If you do have granulated honey just feed it back to the bees via frame replacement.

[Cass Cohenour]

I hope they run run out of stores below in the brood chamber and move through the QX into the super only to leave the queen behind down below to freeze to death. That wouldn't be cool. Being in NC you may get away with it but I definitely would not leave one on over winter. I've left supers on over double deeps before through the winter, without a QX, and when I've done that the colonies really seem to build up better. As long as the honey remains capped in the comb it takes a long time to crystallize whether it's on the hive, in the freezer, or your basement in a garbage bag away from pests. All honey will crystallize over time even in the comb. The higher the ratio of glucose to fructose in the honey the sooner it will crystallize.

[heaflaw]

There are two ways of keeping honey from granulating (sugaring), leave it on the hive or freeze it.  Even pasturized honey will granulate over time.  If you do have granulated honey just feed it back to the bees via frame replacement.

So, if I leave it on until time to rob in late spring, how do I know that it has not granulated in the comb?  I don't want to mix granulated honey with good  honey through the extractor.

Also, Cass, I have checked all the hives and they appear to have enough stores below to make it through winter without even needing what is in the honey supers.

[Brian D. Bray]

There are two ways of keeping honey from granulating (sugaring), leave it on the hive or freeze it.  Even pasturized honey will granulate over time.  If you do have granulated honey just feed it back to the bees via frame replacement.

So, if I leave it on until time to rob in late spring, how do I know that it has not granulated in the comb?  I don't want to mix granulated honey with good  honey through the extractor.

Also, Cass, I have checked all the hives and they appear to have enough stores below to make it through winter without even needing what is in the honey supers.

If you are uncapping frames the sugared honey is obvious and should be set aside.  I try to use the maxiam that any honey left on the hive after Labor Day is for the bees, regardless if there is still some there come spring.  Rotate it to the outside edges of the brood boxes and let the bees use it.  I don't harvest overwintered honey.

[NWIN Beekeeper]

[There are two ways of keeping honey from granulating...]

And one reasonable way to un-granulate it... warm it.

One thought would be to build yourself a temporary warming chamber.
This can be done with a couple sheets of insulating foam board and a light bulb on a good thermostat.
One could also use a de-funct chest freezer.

I would not set it beyond 110 degrees (as this is about the threshold of normal hive temps).
And a fan in the unit would also be advisable to equalize the temp.

Depending on model/brand a good thermostat will run $30-50, but you can have a honey warming chest when you are finished too (good for any size (1 lb bottles to 5-gal +)).

I had plans (from a person or university) but I can't find it at the moment among 2000 other links/favorites. I'll post a link if I find it, but you should be able to find it if you do some google searching.

-Jeff

[Michael Bush]

The easiest is to let the bees burn it all up rearing brood and then refill it during the honey flow.

[Koala John]

I had the same problem as you, with a few boxes of excess honey left on over Winter due to health problems. A quick scrape of some cappings revealed no granulation, but the honey was quite thick due to often freezing over night temperatures. I put a heater with a thermostat in a very small room containing the supers, and left it going for a couple of days. I forget the temperature, but I found it on this site. It was quite warm to stay in the room, though not dangerous. The honey then extracted easily.
Best of luck, John.

[heaflaw]

Thanks for all the advice & Jeff: thanks for the plans.