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