BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Rape seed

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #2831  by AdamD
 25 Apr 2019, 17:28
I have OSR flowering around me, and I can confirm that as soon as it starts and the weather is warm enough for it to yield nectar, the stuff comes in pretty quickly. I have been caught out a little this year and some hives have been jam packed - until yesterday. I need to put more supers on (again) at the weekend.

If the OSR honey is 3/4 capped it can usually be extracted straight away and delay can be very troublesome as it does set very quickly in the comb. It will then set very quickly in buckets once extracted.
I am not sure that 6 weeks is correct for flowering time - it's probably less. However the general rule is that as soon as the flowers start to dwindle, the honey needs to come off.

Yes, some bees do get ratty as a result of OSR. And it's not the neonics causing the rattyness.

Nigel, how do you dry your honey?

(I have a small sealed room in which I have a dehumidifier and a room heater. If buckets are left open, they will lose water over time. I also have a fan board which can sit under a pile of supers so the air flow from the fans blows up through the supers and if some frames are not capped, the honey in the frames dries out quite well. No good for OSR as it sets too quickly, however).
 #2837  by NigelP
 26 Apr 2019, 19:11
Two ways. If I know the uncapped is low, mainly heather I use a supers warmer before extracting. Will remove 4%+ in less than 24 hours.

Image

For last years rape honey that was above 20% water I adapted my heated honey creamer and ran it at 30C with the lid open (and safety bypassed).
Took a few days, but honey was constantly being mixed by the paddle.

Image