>Oil Seed Rape Honey? I am wondering if any of you have experience with
>the harvesting of this type of honey?
 
We take 3 tonnes of Canola honey each year.  We have had considerable
problem when there is a cold snap during flowering and the honey
crystallizes before the bees have even filled the cell.  There are two
varieties grown in South Australia - the early flowering is difficult to get
honey from although the hives build up strength from the pollen.  We think
it is too cold or too moist for the bees to ripen the honey effectively.
 
The later flowering crop produces honey for us in late September and all of
October, provided there are spring rains.  (Down Under this is the first and
second months of spring.)
 
We have developed this procedure for canola.
 
Only one super above the brood box.
 
Excluders so the super is brood free.
 
Remove if the majority is capped.
 
Extract the following day.  If you let the frames stand they will all candy
solid.  I have seen canola honey drip from the frame and solidify in 30 minutes.
 
We work 30 hives and extract that week whatever the harvest is.  It takes us
4/5 weeks to work right round all the hives.
 
When combs have candied (and it still happens) we feed them back to swarms
or to weak hives later in the season.  To ensure the bees clean them out and
do not simply fill with the current nectar flow and recap, we dip the frames
in a container of rainwater just  before placing in the hives.  Otherwise
the candied honey keeps turning up extraction after extraction.
 
I don't know if the canola honey we collect is purer than the honeys people
complain about - we find it a very light mild flavour, popular with
children.  We have tasted some honeys claimed to be canola which were not
pleasant.
 
Betty McAdam
HOG BAY APIARY
Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island
J.H. & E. McAdam<[log in to unmask]
http://kigateway.kin.on.net/hogbay/hogbay1.htm
 
Why not visit the South Australian Superb Websites Ring?
http://kw.mtx.net/sawebring/sawebring.html