# How do I get last bit of honey from cappings?



## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

I just have a 5 gallon bucket filled with cappings - do you put it in the sun? what then? thanks.


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

Spred it on a large baking sheet and let the bees take it back to the hive where you can reclaim it later.


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## TwT (Aug 5, 2004)

after my capping are drained, I will take them out and let the bee's clean them also. you might be surprised on how much they can get from cleaning


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Depending on how energetic I am, I either give them back to the bees to clean up, or put them in a large roasting pan with the oven on 200 F and let it melt to separate and then harden to pull the wax off the top. It will be dark and I only use it or sell it as baking honey, not table honey. But it makes great honey to cook with.


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## Brandy (Dec 3, 2005)

I've always given it back to the bee's to clean up above the inner cover with a super over it. They clean it up pretty fast and when pulling frames later for extraction I can see where they've also used some of the wax to cap some of their cells.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

BULLSEYE BILL said:


> Spred it on a large baking sheet and let the bees take it back to the hive where you can reclaim it later.


Ditto!!! That's roughly how I do it.


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## BarreBee (Jul 29, 2005)

Put it in a salad spinner and let it sit in the sun for about a hour then spin the cappings. Put through strainer. Take honey out with spatula, it works for me. You can get allot of honey this way then I give the bees the rest of the cappings and I also make pollen patties to feed back to the bees. It works great!!


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## Billy Y. (Feb 1, 2005)

*use a strainer and spin*

I use those strainers that fit in a 5 gallon bucket. I put the cappings in it, tie the end shut and spin it in my extractor. You can also buy strainer bags specifically for this purpose at Brushy Mountain.


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## Budster (Mar 24, 2006)

"Spred it on a large baking sheet and let the bees take it back to the hive where you can reclaim it later."

I like that. Yes, we will reclaim it later... Are we greedy, Micheal Douglas was wrong as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Strret"...

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, that 'greed'—for lack of a better word—is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed—you mark my words—will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

budster said:


> "Spred it on a large baking sheet and let the bees take it back to the hive where you can reclaim it later."
> 
> I like that. Yes, we will reclaim it later... Are we greedy, Micheal Douglas was wrong as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Strret"...
> 
> "The point is, ladies and gentleman, that 'greed'—for lack of a better word—is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed—you mark my words—will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."



hehe, well Budster, I don't know if I understand where you are coming from with that, I will always leave more honey onthe hives than the bees need. My thinking is about maximizing the return for the time I put into it... to just put the cappings out there without at least trying a smarter method of gather ing it doesn't make sense.

Right now, I have it in a 5 gallon bucket, which has a strainer hanging on the top, and it is in a hot attic. Hopefully that will help with the seperation.


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

I think I have tried about every way listed above to get the honey out of the cappings but in the end, it's not worth my time and effort to mess with so little.

Let the bees have it, and what they don't need you can have back.


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## good11s (Feb 17, 2013)

Old thread. But has anyone came up with any new ideas to get that last bit of honey out of the cappings? could be an extra couple of cups. that is one more honey bear we can fill!


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

good11s said:


> Old thread. But has anyone came up with any new ideas to get that last bit of honey out of the cappings? could be an extra couple of cups. that is one more honey bear we can fill!


PLEASE - not to spread it out and let the bees have it. It must be the best way to spread AFB if just one hive got it.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

max2 said:


> PLEASE - not to spread it out and let the bees have it. It must be the best way to spread AFB if just one hive got it.


And it encourages robbing from the weak hives and nucs.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

If you move the capping 100 yards from the apiary robbing is nil. Spreading disease depends on the health of your apiary, how much brood disease have you seen in the last few years?


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

AR Beekeeper said:


> If you move the capping 100 yards from the apiary robbing is nil. Spreading disease depends on the health of your apiary, how much brood disease have you seen in the last few years?


I read a lot here where people are worried about spreading disease by allowing capping honey retrieval and feeding honey back to their bees. Makes little sense to me. How many people take the time to make sure they never put used supers from one hive on another after harvest? Certainly the guys running more than about 10 hives can't manage that, talk about a logistic nightmare. So when I see these concerns about cross contamination, I have to scratch my head. An obviously diseased hive should be segregated and corrected, beyond that, I think the concerns are way overblown.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

jbeshearse said:


> So when I see these concerns about cross contamination, I have to scratch my head. An obviously diseased hive should be segregated and corrected, beyond that, I think the concerns are way overblown.



Agree 100%. Let your healthy bees clean up the cappings you harvested from your healthy hives.


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

to answer the subject of the post --> Chew baby Chew.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

TN Apiary act - _"The deliberate acts that are prohibited include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) Placing in a location that is accessible to free-flying honeybees any beeswax combs, beekeeping equipment, honey, or other substance known to be attractive to honeybees and capable of transmitting 
bee diseases..."_

And BTW, TN has an excellent record of preventing and controlling outbreaks of AFB.


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

BULLSEYE BILL said:


> Spred it on a large baking sheet and let the bees take it back to the hive where you can reclaim it later.


Make sure you don't have a hungry squirrel or chipmunk that can get to it.

Also when you have more then 1 hive how do you make sure you don't put a super on the wrong hive next time. Mine go into a pile and get put back on another hive next time it needs to get filled. I cant see how else to do it. Numbering them all would be crazy talk.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

EastSideBuzz said:


> Make sure you don't have a hungry squirrel or chipmunk that can get to it.
> 
> Also when you have more then 1 hive how do you make sure you don't put a super on the wrong hive next time. Mine go into a pile and get put back on another hive next time it needs to get filled. I cant see how else to do it. Numbering them all would be crazy talk.


Mine are numbered but I only deal with 20 hives or so.
After extracting honey we make sure the same frames go into the same box. It works.
Better safe then sorry!


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## Chemguy (Nov 26, 2012)

I have only done this once in my short time beekeeping. What I have found useful to separate honey from cappings is to suspend a collander inside the opening of a large pot. The larger the pot, the larger the collander can be. Then, the collander is lined with flour sack cloth (bought mine at WalMart in the kitchen towel section). The weave on flour sack cloth is tighter than that of cheesecloth, and it is cheaper than cheesecloth. Room temperature honey flows through the cloth easily. In this way, the honey is more suitable as table honey.

I did initially consider heating the cappings/honey in a large roasting pan in the oven, but decided against that approach for two reasons. Primarily, it was my first pull and I wanted to share honey with several people who would rather have table honey. Second, mine is a gas oven and I wanted to play things safe by not approaching the flash point of the wax with a flame-heated appliance. I know that my oven thermostat is erratic at the very low end of the range of possible settings (+/- 30 F around 200 F). In the future I might just use a Presto pot for the whole thing, and wind up with wax and baking honey.

In the end, my choice was made based on the scale of the separation (small), safety, and the materials on hand.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Despite what some people of reputed knowledge say, the prudent thing to do is NOT feed any honey back to the bees.

Let's play with some math. Say you have one hive of 20 that collected some AFB, but has not shown clinical symptoms. You think all is well, and extract all supers and store for the year. If next year you resuper all hives with one super, you most likely will infect one more hive. With 2 supers, the chances increase to 2 more hives. Hmmmm. if you use shallows and not deeps for supers, I bet your infection chances are higher.

If you open feed the cappings, you take a chance of infecting all 20 hives.

Pretty simple to see what is prudent.

Crazy Roland


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Rinse cappings with hot water until five gallons of the water @70 degrees measures 1.20 on your hydrometer and add KIV 1116 per directions on packet. Aereate vigorously for three days and then air lock the container for two weeks or until thu bubbling. Siphon off clear liquid and air lock it for another year. All my cappings get treated this way before being melted down.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

The trouble I have with cappings is that hive beetle larva start working on them before they drain.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Roland said:


> the prudent thing to do is NOT feed any honey back to the bees.


Roland,

I understand that you're a commercial guy, right? So what ever approach that you take must scale to a very large degree. I understand that commercial guys have special processing equipment to handle capping and related honey, but given that I still have a question based upon the description that you gave. 

Here are my questions:

1. Is your concern primarily with the honey in the cappings?
2. What do you do with your wet supers?
3. Do you keep the frames and boxes dedicated to specific hives?

Seems to me that wet supers are nearly as likely to transmit AFB as cappings. If these are spread around to other hives aren't you doing basically the same thing as giving the cappings? 

Thanks in advance.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

1. Is your concern primarily with the honey in the cappings?
Yes.

2. What do you do with your wet supers?
Put them back on a hive, in the summer, or next spring.

3. Do you keep the frames and boxes dedicated to specific hives?
No.

If these are spread around to other hives aren't you doing basically the same thing as giving the cappings? 

One infected super infects one hive.
One infected pile of cappings infects ALL hives.

Crazy Roland


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Roland, you make an excellent argument. AFB is terrible. I'll never leave honey out in cappings or otherwise again. And I'll be very careful when feeding honey to the bees again either. The health of my and my neighbor's bees is more important than being able to be politically correct about being all natural.


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## Steve zone 5 WI (Jan 2, 2013)

Vance G said:


> Rinse cappings with hot water until five gallons of the water @70 degrees measures 1.20 on your hydrometer and add KIV 1116 per directions on packet. Aereate vigorously for three days and then air lock the container for two weeks or until thu bubbling. Siphon off clear liquid and air lock it for another year. All my cappings get treated this way before being melted down.


I second this with one exception, I use 71B-1122,

I did let the bees clean up some cappings ONCE. Two of my nucs didn't survive the melee

Steve


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Vance G said:


> Rinse cappings with hot water until five gallons of the water @70 degrees measures 1.20 on your hydrometer and add KIV 1116 per directions on packet. Aereate vigorously for three days and then air lock the container for two weeks or until thu bubbling. Siphon off clear liquid and air lock it for another year. All my cappings get treated this way before being melted down.


Vance G - I have been toying with that idea for a while. The best Mead I ever had was from cappings.

When you say "Aereate vigorously for three days " - how do you do this? Using a mechanical stirrer and have it on for 3 days? or the occasional stir every few hours?

thanks for the suggestion

max


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

To Max post #30 I just give it what Paddy gave the drum a couple times a day. One heck of a beating if you don't know Paddy. Throwing in a handful of raisins always help add nutrients for the yeasts. Makes a semidry mead. Another guy said 71b and that is good for sweeter mead, you just need to make sure you siphon the wine off the lees after a month with that one or the dead yeast starts giving off nasty flavors I am told.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Default Re: How do I get last bit of honey from cappings? 



To Max post #30 I just give it what Paddy gave the drum a couple times a day. One heck of a beating if you don't know Paddy.

I don't know Paddy but I think I get the idea - a good stir a few times a day.

Throwing in a handful of raisins always help add nutrients for the yeasts. Makes a semidry mead. Another guy said 71b

71b ?? don't get this one? Is this a type of yeast?

and that is good for sweeter mead, you just need to make sure you siphon the wine off the lees after a month with that one or the dead yeast starts giving off nasty flavors I am told. 

I guess the lees would float? 
And then a year of patients!!
Would it be possible to bottle it after a month and let it bottle ferment?

all very interesting 

thanks

max


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## Steve zone 5 WI (Jan 2, 2013)

>71b ?? don't get this one? Is this a type of yeast?<

Yes its a strain of yeast

>I guess the lees would float?<

The lees will sink to the bottom of your container

>Would it be possible to bottle it after a month and let it bottle ferment?<

I would be careful with this. 1) after a month it will still be young,and cloudy 2) you will need to take precautions to let it finish in the bottle. If the proper precautions are not taken, the bottles will build too much pressure. In the worst case the bottles explode. Best case the corks blow out and spill the contents on the wife's floor! (been here....and didn't go well for me) In my opinion DO NOT rush your finished product. Age it in an air locked vessel

Steve


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Besides AFB, we have good reason to believe that CCD can also be spread by feeding honey. 

Crazy Roland


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Thanks to all - sounds like an easy way to get some mead and remember - never offer cappings to your bees!


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