fermenting honey frames

[schawee]

today i went to get two supers  to extract them.when i took  the top cover off and looked in the super i notice what looked like drone cells on the top and bottom of the frames.i pulled one out to look closer and notice blisters in two spots the size of a quarter.i opened the blister up and found bubbles in the honey.i tasted the honey and it was fermented.the cells i thought were drones were fermented honey too.i guess the gasses in the fermented honey pushed the caps out like drone cells and made blisters .all the frames were capped.about 1 1/2" all around the20 frames are like that. inside of that the honey is fine. has anyone had that happen to them or the reason it happened. :? :?schawee

[beee farmer]

Schawnee,
   Had the same thing, one of my hives went queenless and SHB was running them out, unfortunatly was 2 deeps and 5 meds when they invaded.  After the bee population went down I tried to reduce amout they had to protect, there were not enough bees to cool the hive and had several boxes of honey with sections of poped cells like drone cells, it was not fermented though just heat expansion .  The only box that had quarter sized bliters (several cells bubbled together) and femeted was the top box that was only about half capped. The other girls made very short work of it after I left it out by the fence. :-D

Mike

[gardeningfireman]

My guess is the hot summer is fermenting it. I heard on the news that it has been averaging 5 degrees above normal. We need to come up with some mini a/c units to put on the supers!
ps. Schawee, keep up the good work in your videos with JP. They are very entertaining!!

[AllenF]

Look at this crap.   I noticed the bubbles in a couple of frames as soon as I uncapped it.   I still extracted them and am waiting to see if it is bad.

[beee farmer]

Yeah, so much for the old rule of thumb "its good to extract as long as its capped" :hissyfit:

[tillie]

If a hive has a big SHB problem, they mess up the honey.  The surface of the honey looks very wet and slippery.  The smell of honey that has been contaminated by hive beetles is a smell like orange crush.  Instead of the honey smell when you open the hive, you'll smell an orange crush kind of smell. 

I've heard that the bees can't use that honey but when I've removed a frame of it and left it in my carport, the bees rob all the honey out.

Linda T in Atlanta with lots of SHB everywhere

[schawee]

well went through the whole hive yesterday and saw no shb in there.checked the hive next to that one and all 30frames ok but one,it had maybe 15 cells  that had bubbled caps.i opened them and had bubbles in each cell. :?schawee

[bud1]

MEAD

[hardwood]

Ditto...MEAD! (and bring it to Bud's next year :-D)

Scott

[AllenF]

On the frames I had, I let the frames sit in the sink for a good 2 to 2 1/2 weeks after uncapping just to see what was going to happen.   The smell or taste never changed.  And it did not continue to make bubbles after it was first uncapped.   So far no one can tell me why capped honey bubbled. 

[hardwood]

Expansion and contraction due to the hot days and cooler nights could be the problem (not at all sure of this though so take it as you may). If moisture can migrate through a wax capping, why can't air?

Of course in your case Allen maybe uncapping with the knife at a "certain" angle pulled a bubble into the cell much like troweling concrete at the wrong (lower) angle can "pull" a bubble into the finish?

Scott...always guessing

[AllenF]

I watched the bubble form after I took the knife away.   Less than 30 seconds to see it.

[beee farmer]

Cooler Nights????? what cooler nights? 

[hardwood]

Sorry..."relatively cooler" nights :-D

Scott