Just a suggestion. I have found aquarium filter pad to work really good.
Not nearly as porous as cheese cloth with that fine residue making it
through, and the honey comes out crystal clear!
 
        Rich
 
On Sat, 1 Nov 1997, Paul & Sandra Roberts wrote:
> Hi Mike, like you I share a small apiary with only five hives. This is
> managable for a hobby and doesn't generate too much hone to dispose of. As
> I sell all my honey to friends, at markets and to local health food shops I
> need to be able to filter the honey to an acceptable standard. For a while
> I used a stainless steel mesh however it did not filter out the fine wax
> etc. and the honey lacked in presentation. I then moved to using a very
> fine nylon mesh. This is fine enough to remove all of the impurities
> however as you point out if the honey is cold it will not pass through. To
> overcome this problem I suggest that you extract your honey immediately
> after robbing the hive and filtering as the honey comes out of the
> extractor into the bucket. In this way the honey retains the warmth from
> the hive and remains viscous (runny!).
>
> To help with the slow progress through the filter you need to have a large
> contact area. I use two aluminium garden sieves which sit inside each
> other. They have a diameter roughly the same as a 25 litre honey bucket and
> sit nicely on top. The top sieve has about a 1.5mm hole, the lower one
> about a three milimetre hole. In between the two I put a layer of the fine
> nylon, the bottom seive thus really only provides a support for this mesh.
>
> I hope this helps, I try to avoid heating the honey, using this a selling
> point against the commercially packaged honeys, thus adding value which is
> what we are all about.
>
> Regards
>
> Paul Roberts
> Brisbane, Australia
>