On Wed, 16 Aug 1995 [log in to unmask] wrote:
 
> I'm sure you must have encountered the problem facing me. I only
> keep about 50 hives near Edmonton and have had them 7 years.
> They usually produce at least 250 # per hive but this year will
> be another story.
>     We've had very cool wet weather for the last 4 weeks and I
> didn't get some of the earlier honey off until yesterday.
> Unfortunately, there's canola all around this area and now I
> have a considerable amount of granulated honey in some of the
> cells. It's not real solid but won't extract the way it is.
> Is it possible to heat supers enough to get the honey to
> liquefy for extraction or will the wax be destroyed first ?
> Do you know of any other way to deal with this problem?
 
Well, I've tried it and it isn't worth the effort.
 
When we encounter such, we just uncap deep and extract what we can and
place the extracted boxes back on the hive if there is still time.
 
We are seeing some solid cells on many combs this year too, and a few
blow up in the extractor, but it's not as bad as if we had left things
too long.  Sometimes the extractor has to be slowed.  A radial isn't as
good as a tangental type for these combs.
 
if you place a box of extracted granulation uncapped right above the brood
nest while there are still flows possible, the honey may well be liquefied
quickly and should then be removed for extracting.
 
Some people put boxes of granulation under the brood nest in the fall.
At that time the bees will empty the combs and move the honey up.
 
Leaving the boxes out for robbing can work too - if the granulation isn't
too severe and hard.
 
If they combs are good brood combs, they can be used judiciously in new
brood nests for splits or inserted one at a time into the middle of a brood
chamber where they are (usually) cleaned out in a day.
 
As for us, we usually just save the combs til the next year - putting one
or two in each super near the middle and super early.  That way it is no
extra work, and the problem disappears next season.
 
Allen
 
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper                        VE6CFK
Rural Route One   Swalwell   Alberta   Canada  T0M 1Y0
Email:   [log in to unmask]    or   [log in to unmask]
Futures, Art & Honey:http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~dicka