How to stop honey crystallizing?..

[SlickMick]

In previous years I have had problems with honey crystallizing in cold weather.

I am in the sub tropics in Australia and we don't get snow but it gets cold enough for honey to crystallise.

I am after ideas to keep honey warm enough without a lot of trouble or expense.

Can anyone help???

Mick

[little john]

Hello Mick - a lot depends on what sort of quantity you're talking about, and how pretty you need it to be. For a gallon or a handful of gallons, one simple solution would be to turn an old fridge or freezer into a 'hot box'. I made one recently (an old knackered and rusty chest freezer from a shop) for gluing woodwork, as the glue I use won't set below 10 deg C., and although daytime temps here are nearing that, during the night we're currently having heavy frosts.

So - strip the gubbins out, and if it's upright, lay the fridge or freezer on it's back. You now have an insulated box with the door at the top. If it's a chest freezer - you're already there. If you need it to be bigger or better looking, then make-up a nice wooden packing crate and line the insides with expanded polystyrene - don't forget an insulated lid.

Heating the box: many ways of doing this - I used a GRP thermal plate designed for farrowing (piglets etc), but you could use the thermal tape designed for heating outside industrial piping. You could even use aluminium clad resistors bolted onto an aluminium plate, driven by a low voltage. Many ways of skinning that particular cat.

To control the heating, there are several cheap Chinese controllers on Ebay, some with thermocouples (heat sensors), some without.

Hope some of the above gives food for ideas ...
LJ

[BeeMaster2]

Nick,
For small amounts, store your honey on top of a cabinet in your house. The higher the better. It is warmer near the ceiling.
Jim

[Anybrew2]

Hi SM I use an old chest freezing like the little john suggested. I simple got a lead light from Repco, the type that you use to work on a car.
I then used an old type light globe as the heat source. I found an old shelf from an oven and jammed it in the bottom with the lead light underneath.

It works fine warming a 20 litre Bucket over about 12 to 16 hours.

Cheers
Steve

[Michael Bush]

I make no attempt to stop crystallization.  I usually put it somewhere around 57 F or so and try to make it happen smoother and faster...  It's a losing battle trying to keep honey from crystallizing.

[splitrock]

I don't have a lot of experience with this, but I've found that honey that naturally crystallizes, while it may darken a bit when re-liquefied  stays closer to that fresh taste than honey that has been kept warm through out.

  I just found about 5 pounds in a One Gallon jug from 2010 in the back of the cabinet. It was very dark compared to the predominantly light clover honey it once was, it was only 1/3 crystallized. I tasted it, figuring it would have a bit of age taste to it. I was wrong, it was still as good as any other I've produced.  I filled a one lb bottle so I could let others sample some fabulous old honey, an am turning the rest into what is going to be a darker than usual Mead.

[PhilK]

Minor aside here, sorry, but does honey ever crystalise in the hive, or is the temperature in the hive generally enough to keep it liquid? I assume the bees don't mind either way

[GSF]

Good question PhilK

There was a thread on here a while back about re liquefying honey. So along those lines..,

Make sure the jar with the crystalized honey is warm. Fill the water level in a boiler about an inch above the crystalized part. Remove the jar and bring water to a boil. Cut the heat source off then place the jar back into the water. This keeps the honey from loosing it's original flavor. You may have to do this a couple of times. If the jar is cold it'll probably crack or bust.

[mtnb]

Minor aside here, sorry, but does honey ever crystalise in the hive, or is the temperature in the hive generally enough to keep it liquid? I assume the bees don't mind either way

Yes, I've read that it can crystalize in the comb. You just have to leave it for them and they'll rob it out. ....first year, no experience personally with this, knowledge only from reading lol fyi

[little john]

My only major source of nectar is OSR (canola), the honey from which I can tell you from experience sets spoon-bendingly hard in any container it's stored in. I'm told that ivy honey is the pretty-much the same.

OSR honey will indeed set hard in the comb, but there's a short window of opportunity for extracting it before it sets. But - I can't be arsed to extract it, as it's horrible stuff - smells and tastes like Plasticine (a form of Play Dough) - so I leave it in place for the girls. I've never seen a single cell of it left in the spring, so they're dealing with it somehow ...

LJ

[Acebird]

Yes, I've read that it can crystalize in the comb.

Yes it does.  Personal experience, just not as fast because it doesn't have the impurities or air from an extraction process.  I have a lot of crystallized honey in bottles that looks perfectly creamed because it goes through daily temperature changes of warm and cold in a retail environment.

[rober]

best cure I found is to eat it.

[SlickMick]

Perhaps I shall make it into mead. 

Mick

[Colobee]

Warming honey causes damage. If at all possible, freeze it. .  The further below ( or above) ~57*F, the slower it will crystallize. Once extracted, allowing it to crystallize is the least labor intensive. Honey can crystallize in the supers - as little as a month or two too long on the hives during a cold fall. It's a mega-pain to extract & strain.

[little john]

Warming honey causes damage.

Heating, yes. Gentle warming, no. Honey is actually made by a process involving warming.

LJ

[Wombat2]

I have a problem with crystallization when the bees are onto Tea Tree (just starting up here - will go though to June) so I built this http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=47833.msg415203#msg415203 If I bottle straight away it is not an issue and some customers like it but a lot don't.  The slightest bit in a runny batch will set it off and the whole drum can go solid.

[akwusmc]

This is my uneducated 1/2 cents' worth ... my wifes' grandfather kept bees, and his daughters told me that he never fed them anything but honey ... they claim that's why the honey they still have of his isn't crystalized (and we have about a cup left that's over 12 years old)..

[Colobee]

Warming honey causes damage.

Heating, yes. Gentle warming, no. Honey is actually made by a process involving warming.

LJ

It's fairly well documented - any additional heat, whether you call it warming or heating, causes damage...
The diastase content is a relatively easy scientific  method for evaluating how much "warming" a honey has undergone.

[Acebird]

they claim that's why the honey they still have of his isn't crystalized

The claim is in error.  The rate of crystallization is largely dependant on nectar source.  I believe a high sucrose content is the culprit.

[little john]

Additional to what ?  The temperature at the top of a beehive - which is where the honey is usually stored - or around the brood nest - is much warmer than the conditions the OP is describing as that which causes crystallisation. Ergo - if you raise the temperature of that honey to no more than that which the bees themselves enjoy - how can that possibly "cause damage" ?

It's their food - they've been making the stuff and living on it for millenia - so I reckon we should take more notice of the conditions under which they make and store it - and use that as a standard, rather than some arbitary 'scientific' measure.
LJ