# Honey vs Nectar



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

if it won't shake out it SHOULD be ok. best bet is to buy a cheap refractometer


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

in TX, with the low humidity count, I would not worry. 

another fact you should know, nectar is something you can find in a flower, not in a hive. by the time it gets in the frame it is honey. the capped honey is honey that is usually under 16% humidity, so they cap it for later use. they do not want humidity to be absorbed by it. honey will absorb ambiantal humidity, and capping it , allows the bees to focus on something else rather than always keep ventilating their hives. helps store the honey too, at the right humidity level so it does not ferment. very important, you do not want rain on your honey frames, or SHB will get his eggs in there and you are toast. 

so - nectar is never mixed with honey. honey is produced out of plant nectar, by a process called nectar transformation, the worker bees add enzymes, like invertase ( this is added by the foraging bee on the way back to the hive, before passing it to a house bee for further processing). the nectar is basically a sucrose, and during this process it gets converted into a mix of glucose/fructose (about 50/50). this changes it into a simple sugar, easier on the bee digestive system, and ours too  

I did not mean to be a know it all, but I felt like some clarification is in need, and also will answer the OP question. 

if your honey is too humid, there are ways of lowering that humidity, but like I said, in TX it should be hot outside and humidity levels in the nectar itself might not be so high. you should be fine.


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## quigibo (Jun 23, 2014)

Croc, Thanks for the reply. Being new at this I did not take honey from my good hive this spring because I was waiting on all the cells to get capped. Then while waiting on the rain to stop the bees swarmed and took all the honey to their new home.


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## lprikockis (May 19, 2015)

Definitely worth picking up a cheap refractometer to take some of the guesswork out of the process. I found one on Amazon for ~$30. I'm sure it's not the most accurate thing in the world, but it's super quick and easy to grab a drop out of an uncapped honey frame and check what the moisture content is.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

The bees will cap the cells when two things happen.

1 - it's dry enough to cap
2 - the cell is full

I've taken honey out of a few uncapped cells, and the refractometer said it was 14%, ie bordering on to dry. It was not yet capped, likely because the cell was not full. 

Not capped = Not Ready is a myth easily debunked with a refractometer.


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

grozzie2 said:


> The bees will cap the cells when two things happen.
> 
> 1 - it's dry enough to cap
> 2 - the cell is full
> ...


it is a good tool. I do not have one now, and I should. 

another thing you can do , if your honey is still too wet, you can extract it, and then use a cheese cloth to cover the mouth of your pail, drum, whatever recipient you used. leave it in a nice cool and dry place for a little bit. like my kitchen counter  it will loose humidity. if you have too much humidity, I would leave in it, but usually wet honey is rare


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

crocodilu911 said:


> another thing you can do , if your honey is still too wet, you can extract it, and then use a cheese cloth to cover the mouth of your pail, drum, whatever recipient you used. leave it in a nice cool and dry place for a little bit. like my kitchen counter


have you done this, and measured the before / after result ?

I'm pretty sure that if I leave a pail of wet honey on the counter, what I'll get is a pail of fermented honey.


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

grozzie2 said:


> have you done this, and measured the before / after result ?
> 
> I'm pretty sure that if I leave a pail of wet honey on the counter, what I'll get is a pail of fermented honey.


Yup, been dooing this for decades. Leave it in the heat it will ferment, cool place will not. There is the difference. Also if you run it from drun to drum with a pumb, and use a fan on the flowing honey it will also help ventilate. Did that too.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

crocodilu911 said:


> it is a good tool. I do not have one now, and I should.





crocodilu911 said:


> Yup, been dooing this for decades.


Now I'm really curious, without the tools to measure

a) How do you know it was 'wet honey' to start with
b) How did you measure where it ended up ?

My question was very specific and included 'measure the before / after' result. Ie, how do you know that the honey you left out was indeed 'wet' to start, and 'properly dried' when done ? I'd be VERY interested in the actual measurements, ie, what was the before / after percentages, not just some guess, but measurements.


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

grozzie2 said:


> Now I'm really curious, without the tools to measure
> 
> a) How do you know it was 'wet honey' to start with
> b) How did you measure where it ended up ?
> ...


a. I am a 4th generation beekeeper. I can tell you 30 years ago a refractometer was something few people had. you learn to recognize your wet honey, believe me. actually, if you ever had any, you would know. not all honey has the same humidity , depending on flower type, geographical area, weather, etc... I can tell you here in Louisiana , my wet honey that I pulled 1 month ago, Is hard as a rock in my pails. it has a 16-18% humidity level, and just because I do not have one, the guy that buys my honey does. so he told me. I have seen honey at 21%, and you try to dry it and it won't go below 18% , no matter what you do. on one of the last farms I ran, we bought this gadget to dry the honey. it works. each run drops about 1.5%-2.5% depending on honey type. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtZMTDvgThs I found it slow and not so effective. but we used it that year on a bunch of drums of lavender honey. it was around 21%-19%, and we need a max of 17%. so 2 runs each in the machine, and done. 
b. I said I do not own one now, as in presently, I used to have several of them before, and my dad I think has like 2-3, including one of those electronic ones. now that is some smart gadget right there. 

i do not have no, since i have not used one of those in years. experience is what tells you with approximation how wet the honey is. how it flows off your finger, the noise it makes when it comes out of the extractor. my grandpa use to say to listen to the honey song  
you being curious in actual facts, does not change the fact that the stone age method i cited works. you knowing that my honey dropped 2% or 5% will not change much for you, but it did for my dad, since he was able to sell that honey. in most places they look at humidity content and you won't be able to sell it if it is above a certain level. i know here in my state, because of the high humidity levels, honey can be up to 22% , and just sitting in the honey tank over night made it drop %. i helped a large operation a couple of years ago to pull honey, and the guy said he does not even look at that. he knows the honey is wet, and it needs to dry. in his 10 ton honey tank  we filled one every day pulling honey, and we would empty it the next day. if worked just fine for him. i mean, he had over 500 drums for sale, and nobody sent them back  

humidity is a issue sometimes, but most of the times, if your honey is in the hives, it is most likely that they already ventilated enough to keep the moisture levels low. it is not rocket science, just common sense. usually when my dad leaves the cheese cloth on the pails like that, he has them in the basement, and by the time he gets the pails for sale, they are crystalized. 

most of the times you have humid honey, especially up north like you are in BC, is because of the heavy flow. all that honey comes in at once, and the bees do not vent so well, they are busy working on processing the honey and storing it, and they do vent some at night but not enough. especially if you had plenty of rain, and there is a lot of nectar in the flowers, as a result. i worked bees on the 45th parallel most of my life, and i know if you pull your honey during or right after the flow is over, you will get wet honey. if you don't pull then, you get robbing while you pull the honey. so it's one of those choose the lesser evil. we usually used to chose the extracting during the flow, or towards the end of it. that usually meant wet honey, and this is how my dad use to deal with it. 
once again i assumed that the OP and you only have a few pails of honey at the most, so this method helps. 

it's your choice to apply or not, this web page has a consulting role, not a law making role. so please take my personal experience as just that, personal experience. sorry to the OP for the off topic.
i hope this helps, 
Radu


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