> The idea that quality honey cannot be produced by simple methods, is of
>> course wrong. Quality honey can be produced using a hand extractor and a
>> simple strainers, if one is paying attention to details.
>>
>
> Sometimes I think you do not even read complete  posts.

Yes, you are correct that honey that is not capped was the main issue. On that, of course, I have no quarrel. But at this point we have no evidence that the bulk of Chinese honey is produced this way. Why would it be? 

It seems fairly obvious that the Chinese invented this machine to dehydrate low grade honey. Whether that product could even be called honey is questionable, but one that needs to be answered by someone other than me. One would have to assume that the reason folks sell wet honey is that they don't have enough supers to keep supering up and to give the bees time to dry the honey out. Instead they just extract it as soon as it appears in the combs.

I have no crystal ball but I would suggest that this is still the fault of the packers. They want cheap honey and don't care how bad it is. If they demanded quality from the beekeepers AND offered to pay a good price, THEN it would be worth the beekeepers' trouble to build a lot more supers and get the honey made properly. As long as there is no incentive to produce real honey, why would they care?

But lastly, none of us has an accurate picture of what Chinese beekeeping is really like. Even if you went there, could you get it? Hell, even in the USA there are thousands of operations doing things entirely differently. The very first beekeeper I worked for had two 45 frame extractors in a barn, and we pulled the supers before they were capped. We extracted tons of wet honey and nobody cared. There were pigs in the barn too. To this day, when I smell fermented honey I think of pigs.

PLB

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