# honey above 22% in Oct, but need to pull supers.



## cnj_fnr (Oct 27, 2004)

Having pulled my Spring honey in July, it was at 17% moisture, so we were okay, then I put my supers back on and now even though half are full again and capped, the other half have some nectar/honey in them. 

the capped honey is about 22% and the uncapped is higher then that.

So I plan to pull all the supers and "tent" them in plastic with a dehumidifier, for a few days, to try and dry them out a little more.

I am hoping that the capped honey will then below 18% so that I can just bottle it and be okay. (not sure how many days I will have to dehumidify the honey, but I will not extract until the capped honey is closer to 17% moisture.)

It is the remaining honey that I extract, with too high moisture, that I am in a quandry about. I may be able to feed some of it back to my hives to increase their winter food supply. But there is a very good chance that I will not need to do that. So what should I do with the honey?

I am not prepared to attempt to make mead. Nor do I have the time at this point to get prepared.

Can I just can it? waterbath or pressure? 

Or I suppose that I could just "boil" it down to 17% or so and then jar it up for honey to be cooked with...

what do you all do with honey that is too wet?


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## Oregonsparkie (Sep 3, 2003)

I havent run into this problem yet but heating honey above 160 degrees is not good for the honey, it will darked the color and make the flavor stronger also.

I like the dehumidifier idea if it will work.


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## Iddee (Sep 25, 2005)

Why do you need to pull supers? The honey will be just as good in the spring as it is now. I would pull the fully capped frames and leave the uncapped frames on one of the hives. If they need it, they will have it. If they don't need it, they will finish capping it in the spring and then you can harvest it.


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