Bad Honey?

[uglyfrozenfish]

So last year a beek left a top bar hive on my property.  Over last winter the colony died.  He never came to pick up his hive and so I took it apart and harvested honey/wax.
I just opened on of the jars of honey and it seems to have fermented.  There was pressure in the jar that pushed the jar lid up 3/4 of an inch.  There are bubbles throughout the honey in the jar and the honey smells off. 

So what to do with the honey?  Can I give it to my bees when they come this spring?  Should I dump it?

Also why might this have happened?  If I accidentally harvested non-capped honey could that have spoiled the whole batch?

Thanks guys/gals your information is greatly appreciated. 

[VolunteerK9]

Yup, the uncapped would cause the rest to go bad due to excess moisture.

Now, might be a good time to looking on  "How to make mead"

[D Coates]

Also why might this have happened?  If I accidentally harvested non-capped honey could that have spoiled the whole batch?

The honey had too much moisture in it.  When the moisture level is +/-18% the sugar acts like salt as a preservative and wild yeasts cannot activate.  By harvesting honey that's not capped and may have even pulled additional moisture from the air it is high enough that the yeasts can activate.  I'm not sure if you can feed it back to the bees or if you can make mead out of it.  From what little reading I've done on how to make mead wild yeasts are not what you're looking for.  They are tempermental, unreliable, can impart bad flavors, and sometimes it's not yeast but some other type of organism living in there.

[AllenF]

[hardwood]

Don't feed it to your bees, it can kill them. Lots of mead recipes call for boiling the must (honey and water) before fermenting and scooping off the scum. That would kill the wild stuff and let your desired yeast get a foothold.

Scott

[Countryboy]

So now what are you going to do when the beekeeper comes this spring to check on his hive, or to put a new swarm/package in it, and they discover that you helped yourself to the hive contents?

[uglyfrozenfish]

Ok,
The beek set out his hive and bees in the summer of 2009.  Over winter 09/10 they died.  During the spring of 2010 I called and emailed the beekeeper letting him know that his hive had died.  We made a few appointments for him to come and check out his hive and either pull it or put a new colony in the hive.  After cancelling the third time he no longer responded to my email attempts at contacting him.  I decided that since the rent for him housing this hive on my property was for honey I would harvest what little honey was left in his hive and let the local honey bees(there were a number of them in my garden) clean the rest out of the hive.  I pulled the comb off and cleaned the interior of the hive and set it out in my yard to wait for the beekeepers arrival.  So far have not heard anything.  So I guess I am not too worried about what the beekeeper will do when/if he comes since it has been here uninhabited for over a year.  But I still have his equipment waiting for him when he is ready.

[uglyfrozenfish]

Thanks Scott.  That is the most important piece of information!!   Don't want to give the girls anything that could harm them.