This is the third blog in a series of three, which together aim to show a simple and hygienic method of honey processing for a small-scale beekeeper.  The focus of this blog is the heat treatment of honey.

All honey granulates eventually.  Heat treatment enables honey processors to deal with this characteristic, but it must be done carefully to avoid damaging the delicate chemistry of the honey.

Click here to go back to the second blog in the honey processing series, if you missed it.

Why does some honey take longer to granulate than others?

When bees convert nectar into honey they breakdown the complex sugar molecules of sucrose into simple sugar molecules of fructose and glucose.  Bees can digest these forms of sugar.  Foragers do this by secreting enzymes from their Hypopharyngeal glands and adding it to the nectar, as they fly back to the hive from plants.

Different plants will provide nectar which breaks down into varying ratios of fructose and glucose.  If the honey has a large proportion of glucose, it will granulate very quickly, into a fine smooth paste.  If the honey has a large proportion of fructose, it will granulate very slowly but when it does it will be very course and gritty.

How do I deal with the granulation of honey?

The best way to process honey from the hive is to take the honey just as it is capped and then to extract it straight away.  This is especially the case for honey which crystallises very quickly, like oil seed rape.  Once the honey is set in the frame it is difficult to process, so avoid it getting to that stage.  It is much easier to deal with granulated honey which was extracted into honey buckets while it was still liquid.

A honey warming cabinet, with accurate temperature control, is the best method for heat treatment of fully or partially granulated honey.  This allows heat to be applied to the honey in a gentle and accurate way, without damaging the delicate chemistry of the honey.

How did I make a honey warming cabinet?

The photo below shows my home-made honey warming cabinet, made from the cabinet of an old fridge.  The heat is provided from two 60-watt, tube heaters and controlled by a small STC-1000 controller.  The controller comes with a temperature probe.  The probe was mounted inside the cabinet, through the conveniently positioned condensation escape hole.   It can take a 30kg bucket, which sits on the wooden shelf.

There are two small case fans, which are powered by a 12V supply.  These ensure there are no hot-spots inside the cabinet, by moving the air around.  I bought all the components from Amazon for less than £80 and it works well.

The target temperature is set on the controller and it turns the heaters on and off to reach and then maintain that exact temperature.

How do I use heat treatment to change the texture of honey?

There are two key situations when heat is put into the honey, using the warming cabinet: –

• To make “runny honey” by making granulated honey in buckets fully liquid again. This will involve heating the honey to 52-Degree C for over 24 hours, to breakdown the seed crystals, make it liquid and delay the re-granulation process.  (once into jars, the shelf life of the runniness of this honey can be extended for three to six months, by putting the jars in a water bath at 62-Degree C for 45 mins)
• To make “soft set” honey in buckets mobile enough to pour. This will involve heating to 32-Degree C for over 24 hours, to keep the seed crystals in place but enable the honey to pour.  The re-granulation process will take place in the jar in a few days.  The optimum temperature for this is 14-Degree C.

The nature of the granulation process means that if you mix two honeys together they will adopt the texture of the fastest granulating honey.  Soft set honey is made in this way, by gently stirring 15-20% of the “soft set” honey into 80-85% of a “bulk” honey.  The honey is stirred gently but thoroughly, avoiding introducing air bubbles.  After leaving overnight, to allow any bubbles to rise to the surface, the honey can be jarred.  The honey will re-granulate in the jar in a few days.

Why is accurate temperature control of heat treatment so important?

The problem is that honey is very delicate and sensitive to heat.  The natural enzymes present in honey, which many consider giving honey its “goodness”, breakdown over time and this is accelerated by heat.  There is also an undesirable chemical, Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), which increases over time and with heat.

The Honey Regulations 2015 have limits in the amount of HMF that can be present and have a level of enzyme activity which is required.  The issue for the small-scale honey producer is that it is very difficult to measure the HMF level and enzyme activity without very specialised industrial equipment.

The only way that the small-scale honey producer can deal with this is to ensure that only a minimum of heat is used during honey processing and never enough heat is used to exceed the amount of HMF present.  A 30mg per kg rise in HMF can be all that is required to exceed the limits set by the Honey Regulations 2015.

The amount of heat involved in compromising the quality of the honey is surprisingly small and the amount of time it takes to damage it reduces exponentially with an increase in temperature.   Diastase is one of the main enzymes.  The amount of time it takes to half the amount of this enzyme in the honey is also shown below.   These figures are taken from J.D & B.D Yates – Beekeeping Study Notes.  Ted Hooper also gives a lot of useful information in his book Guide to Bees & Honey.

This shows how delicate the honey chemistry is and why heating honey with boiling water or putting it in the microwave should be avoided!

Summary

All honey granulates eventually.  Heat treatment enables honey processors to deal with this characteristic, but it must be done carefully to avoid damaging the delicate chemistry of the honey.

A honey warming cabinet is needed to apply heat in a gentle and controlled way.

If you sell your honey, even from your door or at local farmers markets, there are food safety, hygiene, packaging and honey regulations that still apply.  The aim of this series of blogs has been to demonstrate that they do not have to be onerous for the small-scale beekeeper.  They can even be helpful in reassuring people, who buy your honey, that it is good honey and safe to eat, by demonstrating a knowledge of the regulations in the way you present your honey.

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This weekend I have been using pollen microscopy to identify the different spring forage being brought into the apiary.  Foraging bees were bringing in several different colours of Pollen.  These ranged from bright orange through bright yellow, to light yellow.  With so much forage available, here in rural Northumberland, I was keen to identify what the foragers were bringing back to the hive.

What approach did I use for Pollen Identification?

The approach I used for Pollen Identification involved:

• Looking to see what was in flower in the surrounding area in significant quantity
• Trying to see which flowers the bees were visiting
• Taking samples of the pollen from these plants
• Recording the colour of the pollen loads arriving on the landing boards
• Making up pollen slides and examining them under the microscope
• Confirming the colour of the pollen load with Rex Sawyers Pollen Identification

The outside photographs in this blog were taken with a Nikon D3200, fitted with a Tamron 18-275 mm lens and a Sigma 105mm macro lens for the close-up shots.  The microscope photos were taken with an apex minigrab camera, fitted into the eyepiece of my Apex Researcher compound microscope.

Identifying Dandelion using Pollen Microscopy

There is a large amount of dandelion in flower.  It is along all of the hedgerows, in open grassland and in the apiary.  It is hated by most gardeners, but the bees love it.

Watching the flowers in the apiary, foragers could be seen with bright orange pollen in their baskets.  The same distinctive colour could also be seen on the landing board of the hive.  The short journey time must have made it very appealing this weekend.

Dandelion pollen is very distinctive.  It’s an easy one to remember for anyone studying for their BBKA Microscopy exam.  It usually has a lot of the yellow oily substance on and around the pollen grains.  The pollen varies in size around 30 um.  It is very roughly round, but it’s surface is made up of very distinctive, jagged, ridges.  These ridges have spines all along them.

Identifying Oil Seed Rape using Pollen Microscopy

The oil seed rape is in flower and the foragers were making a bee-line for it.  It is a favourite of the honey bee but surprisingly was not the only pollen arriving on the landing board.

The Oil Seed Rape pollen measured 38um under the microscope and is oblong in shape.  The pores are not prominent.  The two pictures below show the photos taken through the eyepiece.  The one on the left shows the netted and beaded surface of the pollen grain.  The one on the right shows the section at the equator and the medium thick exine (shell).

Identifying Forget Me Not using pollen microscopy

Forgot Me Not is currently in full flower.  It is hard to imagine that it’s tiny little flowers yield enough to interest bees.  So, it was interesting to watch a patch of it to see how much interest it was generating across different species, including honey bees.

The picture on the left shows a honey bee foraging for nectar, with its proboscis extended into the narrow nectary of the forget me not.  The right-hand side photo shows a species of solitary bee, also working the Forget Me Not.  From Steven Falk’s Field Guide to British Bees, I think this is a Gooden’s nomad bee.

There were also species of fly working the Forget Me Not, including this Bee-Fly on the left and Hover Fly on the right, below.

Forget Me Not pollen is tiny, at about 6um.  It is a very distinctive dumbbell shape.  Rex Sawyers pollen identification guide shows that Forget Me Not pollen is a yellow colour.  There were different shades of yellow pollen going into the hive and the bees were working this flower, but it looked like they were taking nectar and none of the honey bees had pollen in their baskets.

Identifying Black Thorn using Pollen Microscopy

The black thorn in the woods and hedgerows is in flower in the area, in abundance.

Black thorn pollen is round/oblong in shape and is about 48um in size.  The photo on the left shows the thin to medium section of the exine at the equator.  The photo on the right shows the granulated texture of the surface, as well as the three furrow shaped pores which run between the poles.

Identifying Primrose using Pollen Microscopy

Many of the local hedgerows have clumps of primrose nestled under them.  There was little evidence that it is being foraged by honey bees, but I was keen to get a sample of this pollen for my collection, in case it turns up in pollen loads or in honey.

The right-hand photo shows the section at the equator and the medium thickness of the exine.  The left-hand photo shows the pitted textured surface and the round pore apertures.  The aperture pores look like little craters on the surface.

Spring Pollen Microscopy Summary

This weekend there was an abundance of spring forage.  I was keen to take a closer look at the forage that the bees were working and bringing back to the hive, by doing some field photography and pollen microscopy.

It was evident that most of the pollen coming back to the hive was oil seed rape and dandelion.  Smaller quantities of other pollen was being brought back to the hive, and that these included black thorn.

It was fascinating to see the different shapes and colours of the pollens.  Rex Sawyer’s Pollen Identification for Beekeepers was also a great resource for understanding and classifying pollen.

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There are three main reasons why honey bees forage for water.

• Dilution of concentrated honey, so they can digest it
• Maintaining temperature and humidity in the brood nest
• Mixing with saliva to clean brood cells

During the last spell of warm weather we saw honey bees making regular trips to a small pool, filled with pebbles, in our garden.  While most of the rest of the foragers were going for glory, bringing in pollen baskets full of white, yellow and orange pollen, a few steadily worked this little pool for most of the day.

It was fascinating to watch them hover above the pool, spot a place to land, then drop onto a pebble.  They then extended their proboscis and sucked up the liquid, taking about 20-30 seconds per trip.

The equipment I used for this photo was a Sigma 105mm macro lens fitted to a Nikon D3200 camera.

How do honey bees use water for digesting honey?

Honey bees need to keep the concentration of sugars to about 50% in their stomach to enable digestion to take place.  Nectar can vary in concentration from under 30% sugars, up to over 70%.  When nectar is collected, the forager mixes it with enzymes.  These break down the complex sugar in the form of sucrose, into the more digestible simple sugars of glucose and fructose.

When the nectar is being turned into honey for storage, the water needs to be evaporated off.  The worker bees in the hive will get it down below 20%.  This ensures that the honey will keep over the winter.  At these times there is an excess of water in the hive and the workers will work hard to ventilate the hive and stop condensation and damp in the hive.

In the spring water is needed to dilute the honey back down to a concentration that it can be digested.  So the foragers will need to collect nearly as much water as the honey the want to dilute.  Fondant can be over 98% sugar, so they need even more to be able to dilute it.

How do honey bees use water to regulate temperature and humidity?

Water is used in the hive to reduce temperature and increase humidity.  When the temperature of the brood nest is too high the bees will first attempt to cool the hive by fanning, to circulate the air.  When this is not enough, water is smeared on the surface of cells and fanned.  The effect of the evaporation is to take heat from the surrounding air, which creates the cooling effect.  Just the same way your domestic fridge works!

Tom Seeley describes this process in his book Honeybee Ecology.

Which honey bees collect the water?

There is some debate about water collection being done by specialist bees, which devote themselves to water foraging and sharing within the hive, or if all workers may adopt this role if they sense it as a priority but will move on to other roles when they no longer sense a need for it.

I find Tom Seeley’s description of the way that individual bees respond to needs within the hive and their “decay of interest” in tasks, very convincing, in his book “Wisdom of the hive“.

Summary

Honey bees need water to digest food and maintain temperature in the brood nest.  When they are living on stores of honey and fondant they need large quantities of it to dilute them to a concentration they can digest.  You can help your bees by making sure they have a water source close by.  They can’t land on the water to feed, so need a ramp, stones or a sponge to stand on while they drink.

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Went on a mission today to identify the mystery white pollen that my bees were foraging and bringing back to the hives yesterday.  I was on the look out for Hazel but could not find any.  There are a few large mature Yew trees near to the apiary, which are in full bloom and casting great clouds of white pollen in the light breeze.

Shaking a branch of the tree released even thicker dusty white clouds.  I took a small sample of the strange little salt cellar like flowers, which I took home and made up a microscope slide, using the method I learned on the NDB Microscopy Short course.

The Yew pollen varied in size between 25um and 30um.  It is round and has a granular surface.  On most of them apertures are not evident but on one or two there appears to be a small number of pore type apertures.  The intine looks quite thick.

Looking at Rex Sawyer’s Pollen Identification for Beekeepers, everything looks consistent, except he has Yew listed as 5=yellow, rather than 1=white.  If I accept that yellow ranges from a cream colour to almost orange then I’m going to work on the basis this is Yew pollen.

What else did I see the bees foraging on today ?

The snowdrops are still being worked but are coming to an end.  There were a few isolated Christmas Roses (Helleborus) being worked and some small pockets of Crocus.  The Crocus were receiving a lot of attention and would account for some of the orange pollen yesterday.

As I don’t have a Crocus slide in my set, I took a flower home and made up a slide for this too.  The Crocus pollen is large, 160um.  Its round and does not have any distinct apertures, although its surface is pitted.

Summary

I think the mystery creamy white/grey/yellow pollen I saw going in yesterday is from nearby Yew trees.  I’ve been surprised at the range of forage the bees are bringing back to the hive this early in the season and look forward to seeing what they work on as the season progresses.

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Temperature was up to 12 Degree C today, with light winds and sunshine.  All colonies were very busy in the apiary, with lots of spring like behaviour, including actively foraging.  Still too cold to open up the hives but a peak through the perspex crown boards shows that the clusters are dispersed and bees are busy around the brood nest.  There are still capped stores they have not consumed and they have taken very little of the fondant I gave them in February.

There is more cold weather on its way next week, with snow forecast for the weekend.  So, I have decided to leave them in winter mode for a bit longer, with small entrances, insulation and fondant in place.  I won’t be stimulating them with weak sugar syrup as I planned, when I was expecting a “normal” spring.  The oil seed rape will also be feeling the cold start to spring, so the bees may be about to get the timing right all by themselves!

What pollen are the bees actively foraging ?

So far the bees have been foraging on snowdrops, with the characteristic bright orange pollen load visible on many of the returning foragers.  This was also the case today but there are also a number of foragers coming back with their pollen baskets full of an off-white, grey, cream colour pollen.  I have had a good look around the area and looked up white pollen in Rex Sawyers Pollen Identification guide but so far have not been able to identify what it is.

I have highlighted two returning foragers, with blue arrows on the photograph, showing the two different colours of pollen coming in today.

What behaviour did I see at the entrances, today ?

The bees were very busy today and were starting to queue up around the small 25mm x 7mm winter entrances, which only just coped with the traffic.  There was lots of orientation flights going on, especially early on in the day.  Bees would emerge and fly facing the hive in a circular and zig-zag path, at increasing distances, before heading off.

One of the other behaviours I saw for the first time this season was bees standing in a characteristic fanning posture, standing on all six legs with rear legs at full height, with abdomens raised and their nasanov glands open.   This behaviour tries to establish a plume of phermones, from the hive which act as a homing beacon for returning foragers.

I have highlighted two foragers, with blue arrows, that were fanning at the entrance in this way today.

Next steps with more cold weather on its way

I’m planning to leave the bees in winter mode with snow planned for next weekend.  They have done a great job of surviving this far and are well supplied with fondant, are dry and well insulated.  I look forward to seeing how they do after the next cold spell and I’m getting ready for weather that will allow me to do my spring inspections and cleans.

If you have any suggestions on what the mystery white pollen is please let me know and if you like this post please comment or like and/or share on facebook.

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First Pollen of the season going in.  9 Degree C with sunny intervals.  Looks like they are foraging pollen from the snowdrops, that there are carpets of nearby.  Not much activity outside the hives.  A few hardy foragers are out but a look through the perspex crown board shows that the cluster is dispersing.  The workers also look very busy inside the hive.

With the breakdown of the cluster and pollen going there is a strong indication that the queen is starting lay again.  The brood nest temperature will be increasing from the winter level of 20 Degree C up to the brood rearing temperature of 35 Degree C.  This will require a lot of stores to be consumed.  So I’ll be keeping a check on stores and looking out for cold spells.

Looking through the perspex crown board, I can see that the cluster has started to spread out across the full width of the first five frames.  Capped stores can be seen on the next three frames.  A small amount of wax has been drawn between the top of the frames and the under side of the perspex crown board, which will be tidied up when I start my spring clean inspections, as the season starts and the weather warms up.

This is a good start to the season, as I’m trying to get them ready for the autumn sown oil seed rape.  In previous years the autumn sown oil seed rape has flowered in March to April.  Here in rural Northumberland, this has been a little early for the bees.

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