# Is there a way to reduce moisture of extracted honey?



## frankthomas (Aug 2, 2012)

So once it's in a 5 gallon bucket, can you reduce the moisture if need be?


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## Pete O (Jul 13, 2013)

Don't waste your time freezing; it's a waste of time. Experience has shown me that if it isn't capped, it isn't ready contrary to the old shake philosophy. Last year I extracted several frames that passed the shake test but came out as 20+ % water. Since then it's all been fed back to the bees. There's not much else to do with high water content honey other than feed or cooking.


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## frankthomas (Aug 2, 2012)

This is all beautifully capped honey but it has been sitting in my garage for a week and it's been humid and today it is raining. I haven't had time to extract but today I do. The 5 med supers have been sitting up on a couple 2x2s with screened covers top and bottom. But I'm afraid it's picked up moisture.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

There's been a lot of posts here about "drying" honey. Most involve a closed room with a dehumidifier, fans, etc. Some have claimed success; others not so much. For me, it depends on how "wet" the honey is. A little....I prob won't sweat it. A lot, I might just make mead or something else that won't waste it. On a side note, I once bottled a pail from completely capped frames. Maybe 40 pounds of honey. As I was finishing up, I suddenly decided to test. Must have been within 8 or 10 bottles to being done. 20% plus!!! I decided to let it go. Never had a problem with any of it. Maybe the last of it was wetter than the rest, I don't know but I bet if it was a lot wetter, I'd have had problems. Just my thoughts.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

I've made creamed honey with thin honey, it turned out a little thicker than regular honey and taste fines even after a year. It get thicker during winter. 

This year I use two extractors. Extracted the frames with open cells first then uncapped them and used the other extractor. Will use the thinner honey for mead, ice tea and more creamed honey.


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

frankthomas said:


> So once it's in a 5 gallon bucket, can you reduce the moisture if need be?


look, if you have it in the pail, then just put some cheese cloth over the opening, and tie it down. place pail in the house, or basement. if your AC is running in the house and you keep it at below 75, it will do just fine. keep there until it dries out, and by that I mean it will start to crystalize. or if you have a tester, keep testing. 

I wrote a few pages on this issue, on a different post. just because it is 20% it does not mean it is wet, and it will spoil. different honeys, different areas , different %. I have honey here at above 18 % always, and it crystalizes in 2 weeks after I put it in pails. when I extracted it, we had 90F days with 95% humidity outside. honey was flowing like water, but this is how our honey is. so do not worry too much about the rain outside, and stuff. 

the cheese cloth method worked for my grandfather and my dad, and I have used it years ago. very archaic, and it takes time.


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## ChuckReburn (Dec 17, 2013)

frankthomas said:


> So once it's in a 5 gallon bucket, can you reduce the moisture if need be?


With our wet spring we had several yards where capped honey was around 20%. We were able to bring it down to 18% in less than a week. Whole house humidifier in a small room, aquarium pump with food grade silicon hose attached to a stainless utensil to hold it in the bottom. The air agitates and speeds the drying process but it creates a wax foam on top and the fine bubbles take several weeks to settle out. The dehumidifier pulled about a gallon of water a day out of the room, leaving the room bone dry. I suppose it would work albiet quite a bit slower without the bubbler.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I'm guessing the timing of this discussion has a lot to do with county fairs.

Just smiling here because the topic came up during a slow moment at the club bee booth at the fair last night. One of our friends won a blue ribbon for a beautiful block of beeswax, but was having trouble with moisture content with his honey. This, despite having tried to correct a few bottles with a stay in our queen cell incubator.

A demonstration at our last club meeting was the first look many members have had at the instruments used to judge honey. A few years ago, there was virtually no honey being judged at the fair. One pro beekeeper was usually the only entrant. She has since encouraged more members to compete, and they are just learning the ropes.


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## ChuckReburn (Dec 17, 2013)

Phoebee said:


> I'm guessing the timing of this discussion has a lot to do with county fairs.
> 
> Just smiling here because the topic came up during a slow moment at the club bee booth at the fair last night. One of our friends won a blue ribbon for a beautiful block of beeswax, but was having trouble with moisture content with his honey. This, despite having tried to correct a few bottles with a stay in our queen cell incubator.
> 
> A demonstration at our last club meeting was the first look many members have had at the instruments used to judge honey. A few years ago, there was virtually no honey being judged at the fair. One pro beekeeper was usually the only entrant. She has since encouraged more members to compete, and they are just learning the ropes.


Honestly, no - at least not here. Our typical honey runs 17 - 18%, it would never be an issue. We've had an unusually wet spring (6 leading up to our harvest time. One batch of honey (yes it was all capped) was at 22% moisture. And, we harvested less than expected. Issues with capped honey fermenting were documented in ABJ 50+ years ago, trying to avoid known issues, not earn any awards here.


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## Browtine (Apr 13, 2014)

We pulled about 2.5 gallons of 19-20% honey down to 18% in pretty short order by placing it in a couple large shallow pans and placing it in a small room with a dehumidifier. I wouldn't want to try it with a big batch, but for smaller amounts, it's not hard at all. The key is lots of surface area, it wouldn't work too well in a five gallong bucket.


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## bean tree homestead (Nov 18, 2013)

https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=409

Is this even a viable tool in large scale?


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