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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The post Simple hygienic honey processing for a small-scale beekeeper – Part 3 heat treatment appeared first on NorthumbrIANbees.

This is the second 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 filling of jars with honey.  It will start with filtered honey in buckets and finish with the filled and labelled jars.

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

How do I clean and sterilise the jars ready for filling?

Once the honey has settled, it is ready to put into jars.  The first stage is to clean and sterilise the jars and lids.  Some suppliers can deliver pre-packed jars and lids, which are ready to fill but if the jars or lids have not been in air tight packaging then they will need to be cleaned and sterilised.  This year, I bought 8oz and 1lb jars from the bottle company, through Amazon.

The jars are cleaned by putting them upside down in the dishwasher and putting them through a complete wash cycle and then sterilised by putting them in an oven, preheated to 140-degree C, which is then switched off to cool down to a handleable temperature.  The lids are washed in hot soapy water, rinsed and allowed to air dry.

How do I set up the honey filling workspace?

Here is the bench set up for a round of jar filling.  From left to right: –

• Cleaned & Sterilised jars – Notice that the jars are stacked open end down, to prevent anything falling into them while they are waiting to be filled.
• The settling bucket on a homemade tilting platform – The tank has a honey tap/valve. The tilting platform is made from plywood, strip wood and two stainless steel hinges.  Its painted with a few coats of gloss to make it easy to clean.
• Small domestic digital scales – more on them later.
• Cleaned Lids – again open end down.
• Drip tray – on the floor below the tap is a strategically placed freezer food box.

How do I go about filling the jars?

The filling part of honey processing is straightforward.  A jar is filled, weighed and a lid is immediately put on it.  The skill with filling is to close the honey valve just at the right time, to get the correct weight first time, to avoid getting any bubbles in the honey, particularly at the neck, and to get all the honey inside the jar!

The homemade tilting platform is useful when the bucket is getting low and prevents honey from the surface producing streaks in the jar, until the last jar or two, which are kept for home use.

How do I get the weights right?

There is legislation for the weight of honey that goes into jars for sale.  The Weights & Measures Act 1985.  The small-scale beekeeper can simplify things a great deal for themselves.

“Average” weight legislation is complex but working with “minimum” weight is easy.  Just make sure every jar has at least the “declared” weight of honey in it!

To do this I bought a 200g and a 500g Calibration weight from Amazon.  Every time I use my small domestic digital scales, I calibrate them using these weights.  I then weigh a few jars and tare my scales to the heaviest empty jar.  As I fill each jar I weigh it on my scales and make sure it is a few grams over the declared weight.

How do I comply with the labelling regulations?

The labelling legislation can also be easily dealt with.  By ordering honey labels from one of the online honey label printing services, like Thorne, all the requirements of what you must put on the label and the size of the print for the various bits of information is taken care of, by just filling in the boxes.

It’s common practice to put the end of the following year for the best before date, produce of UK for the origin, the name of the honey is normally where it is from and an address that enables the consumer to contact the beekeeper.  The weight needs to be in grams and you can give it any lot code you find useful.  I like to use the year of filling followed by a sequential label number.

The Honey Regulations 2015 and the Food Labelling Regulation have a lot to say about the specific words that you can use to describe the honey.  You are quite safe using the word “honey” but if you want to put anything like “heather”, “comb” or “local” you should study the wording of the Honey Regulations.

The aim is to prevent anything that is misleading.  So, if you have the name of a place, the honey needs to be from that place.  If you mention a forage, the honey needs to be mainly of that forage.  Also take care with pictures.  If you show a picture of a plant on the label, you are implying that is what is in the jar!

At about 10p per jar the pre-printed label and tamper evident strip give the jars a professional look and ensure compliance with the legislation.

What honey processing records do I keep?

Traceability is important for food.  The small-scale beekeeper can keep the records simple, especially if they are processing honey less than 3 or 4 times a year.

My records follow the buckets.  I record the dates I take honey from the hives in my apiary journal.  When I extract the supers I create a “bucket” card for each bucket that gets filled.  This stays with the bucket until it is emptied.  On the card are the following pieces of information

• The date the honey was taken from the hive
• The date that it was extracted and put into the bucket
• The Weight of honey in the bucket (measured using suitcase weighting scales – see photo)
• The date, duration and temperature of any heat that was used
• The date the bucket was emptied into jars and the lot number range of the labels

This may sound like a lot of detail, but if you ever have more than one bucket on the go it’s helpful to know which one was the spring one and which was the summer one!  It can also very convincing if you ever need to show some due diligence over your honey processing.

Summary – jarring honey

When honey processing, filling jars with honey can be done in a simple and hygienic way, with a minimum of equipment, by the small-scale beekeeper, while still satisfying the regulations.  You can achieve a lot, with equipment you would often find in a domestic kitchen and some decent labels, if you follow some good hygienic practices and make sure there is more than the declared weight of honey in the jar.

The presentation of your honey in nice clean jars, with professional labels and tamper evident strips will help reassure people, who buy your honey, that it has been hygienically processed and is safe to eat.

Click here to go to part three of the series on honey processing.

If you have found this interesting or helpful, please subscribe to my blog, or like/share on Facebook.

The post Simple hygienic honey processing for a small-scale beekeeper – part 2 jarring honey appeared first on NorthumbrIANbees.

This blog is the first 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 extraction part of the process and will start with supers of honey through to filtered honey in buckets.

With the warm and sunny weather during May, June and July, here in rural Northumberland, the bees have been collecting large quantities of nectar and turning it into honey.

What regulations apply to the small-scale honey processor?

Honey needs to be handled with the same precautions as other foods.  It may not be as high risk as dealing with raw meat or raw dairy products but the legislation regarding food safety & hygiene still applies, even if you are only selling directly through a local shop, from your door, at a local fair or at a farmer’s market.

Small-scale honey processors don’t need to register their premises but are expected to ensure that the place they process the honey is clean and hygienic, the honey is free from contamination and that the people doing the honey processing work in a hygienic way.

On my journey to become a BBKA Master beekeeper, I found studying for BBKA Module 2, Honey Bee Products & Forage, a great help in learning about honey processing legislation and techniques.  Details of the requirements for Food Hygiene Regulations and the Food Safety act 1990 can be found on the Food Standards Agency website.

How do I set up a room for honey processing?

When getting ready for the BBKA General Husbandry Assessment, I set up my utility room as a honey processing room.  This involved putting PVC sheeting on the lower part of the walls, installing a double sink, getting a stainless-steel work bench and putting down a removable sheet of lino on the floor.  I also did an online Food Hygiene for Hygiene Supervisors certificate.

Here is my honey room set up for a round of honey processing.  From left to right:-

• Me – Scrubbed up, with hair net and disposable apron on.
• 3 Frame extractor – Thorne had an offer on a few years ago and I bought one for £160 brand new.
• Honey warming cabinet – More on that in part 3 of the series on honey processing.
• Various honey buckets & filters – I tend to get my buckets and filters from Amazon or Thorne.
• Supers ready to process – Notice the black plastic tray used to stack the supers on.  They are great for carrying supers from the apiary.
• Stainless work surface – I bought this on ebay a couple of years ago for £75.
• Uncapping Tray & Uncapping knife – The uncapping knife cost £5 in a Thorne’s sale. The uncapping tray is home-made and is probably the best piece of equipment I have.
• Empty frames and supers – Again on top of a plastic tray, to catch any drips from the frames.

The aim of the layout is to create a flow, which does not involve me having to move around too much or carry dripping frames very far.  Everything can get very messy otherwise as you get stuck to the floor!

It helps if the room is warm while you are honey processing and it is important to keep windows and doors closed to avoid any flying insects, as well as trying to keep honey covered whenever possible.

How do I check the moisture content before honey processing?

The Honey Regulations 2015 require the water content of honey to be no more than 20%, for most floral honey and 23% for some honey, like heather.  If the honey is fully capped, then you can be sure that the bees considered the water content to be low enough to prevent it from going off over winter and so can you.  If you have some frames which are partially capped, or to confirm it anyway, a refractometer can be used.

I paid about £20 for mine a couple of years ago from Amazon.  They are very simple to use and give an instant and accurate measure of the water content.

How do I uncap frames of honey?

The first stage of the process is to uncap the sealed frames of honey, over an un-capping tray.

I’m really pleased with my home-made capping tray.  It is based on a “35L really useful box” and a 32cm by 38cm sturdy cake stand.  Two holes were drilled half way down each side to take four M8 food grade stainless steel nuts, bolts and washers.  The bolts are not attached to the cake stand but just provide something for it to rest on.  Two sheets of silicon baking mesh cover the upside-down cake stand and a baton is used across the top of the box to support the frame being uncapped.  Altogether it cost less than £40 and I find it works great.

How do I extract & filter honey from the frames & cappings?

Once the frames are uncapped the frames are put into the tangential extractor.  My extractor only takes three frames at a time and is manual.  Being a tangential extractor, the frames need to be spun on one side and then the other, which is bit of a faff.  Care must also be taken, particularly with the first side, not to “burst” the comb, by spinning too fast.  That’s all you get for a £160 extractor!  I find it OK for doing five or six supers of frames, in an hour or so.

Meanwhile, the honey in the cappings is dripping through into the bottom of the uncapping tray, below the cake stand & mesh.  It can take a few hours, or overnight, for most of the honey to drip off the cappings but its always a surprise just how much honey there is from the cappings.

I recently extracted 45kg of honey.  25Kg of it was removed from uncapped frames by the tangential extractor and 20kg of it was collected from cappings in my uncapping tray!

How and why do I filter the honey?

Filtering the honey extracted from the frames in the extractor and the cappings in the uncapping tray is an essential step in ensuring there is no contamination in the honey.  The prime aim is to remove any bits of wax, wood, bee or any other physical debris from the honey.

Mesh size is important.  The standard double mesh filters from bee equipment suppliers, are usually 1.5mm and 0.5 mm.  These are great for taking debris out while still allowing most of the pollen through.  If honey is been filtered “for show” a finer mesh of 0.2mm (200 micron) is often used, to improve clarity but this can significantly reduce the amount of natural pollen in the honey.

Once the honey is filtered and is into honey buckets, it is left to settle.  After 24 hours any bubbles in the honey rise to the surface.  This “scum” is unsightly but is simply air bubbles on the surface and can be skimmed off with a spoon to avoid it getting into the jarred honey.

Summary – Extraction

Extraction of honey can be done in a simple and hygienic way, with a minimum of equipment, by the small-scale beekeeper, while still satisfying the regulations.  If you only want to process a few frames or a single super of honey, you won’t need more than a simple capping tray and a honey bucket with a valve and a filter, to get started.

If you sell your honey, even from your door or at local farmers markets, there are still food safety, hygiene, packaging and honey regulations that apply.  They do not have to be onerous for the small-scale beekeeper and are even a helpful way to reassure people who buy your honey that it is good honey and safe to eat.

Click here to see the second blog on simple hygienic honey processing for the small-scale beekeeper.

If you have found this interesting or helpful, please subscribe to my blog, or like/share on Facebook.

The post Simple hygienic honey processing for a small-scale beekeeper – part 1 extraction appeared first on NorthumbrIANbees.