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Can bees eat crystallized honey?

Yes, bees will eat crystallized honey and there is no harm in feeding it to them. Remember that crystallized honey is not a modern invention. Bees have had to deal with it from the beginning and they know what to do.

In the depth of winter when bees cannot get outside, they use moisture that has accumulated in the hive to rehydrate the crystals. This moisture is the natural result of their respiration that condenses on cold surfaces within the hive. The bees take this water and “spit” on the crystals causing them to liquify. Bees eat candy boards, hard sugar cakes, and granulated sugar using the same method.

Some books claim that crystallized honey causes honey bee dysentery, but I do not believe those claims are correct. Honey bee dysentery, which is essentially bee diarrhea, is caused by honey having a high ash content. Ash is the stuff that remains after you burn away a sample of honey. You can think of ash as the “solids” that remain after you remove all the sugars. High ash content is associated with darker honeys.

Crystallization on the other hand is highly influenced by the ratio of glucose to fructose found in the honey. The higher the glucose, the more likely it is to crystallize. Other factors are involved as well, but this piece is critical.

Now, if you put these two facts together, you can see that honey with a high ash content that crystallized is more apt to cause honey bee dysentery than honey with a low ash content that crystallized. It would be easy for someone to feed high ash, crystallized honey to bees and conclude that the crystals caused the dysentery when, in fact, it was the ash that caused it.

If the crystallized honey you feed your bees is only part of their diet, or if the honey came from a variety of floral sources, it will cause them no problems. On the other hand, if you have many, many frames of crystallized honey with a high ash content, it could conceivably promote dysentery. It comes down to using some judgment about how much to give them. You can use the darkness of the honey for a rough estimate of ash content.

If you are trying to get your bees to clean up frames that contain crystals before winter sets in, put the super above an inner cover with a center opening. Uncap the crystallized honey, if necessary, and lightly spray the frames with warm water. The crystals at the surface will start to dissolve and the bees will be encouraged to move the honey down into the brood boxes, assuming they have room down there to store it.

If they still refuse to clean it up, it may mean they are still finding liquid feed—nectar, honey, or syrup—somewhere else. You can always move the crystallized frames down into the brood box or save them for later.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Does pollen cause crystallization?

A common justification for the ultrafiltration of honey is “it lasts longer on the shelves.” In other words, the ultrafiltration process—which removes all debris, including any pollen grains—delays crystallization, making the honey more attractive on the store shelf.

In spite of that practice, you cannot assume that pollen causes crystallization. In fact, honey crystallizes based on the type of sugars that are present in the nectar. Honey high in fructose crystallizes slowly; honey high in glucose crystallizes quickly.

That said, crystals form more quickly when they have a nucleus or seed to get them started. The nucleus is just a foundation that gives the crystal a place to build. The seed can be another crystal (a principle used in the Dyce process for making creamed honey) or it can be a speck of dust or a grain of pollen.

But if your honey is very high in fructose, the pollen will not cause the honey to crystallize. Just ask the producers of non-crystallizing honey such as tupelo, gallberry, and chestnut. They’ve been producing honey for generations—since long before ultrafiltration was invented—yet their honey didn’t crystallize. I filter my own honey through a food mesh large enough for aphids to pass through, yet my honey doesn’t crystallize either. It’s all in the nectar.

However, if your honey is high in glucose, you can delay the crystallization process by removing all the pollen grains. With no platforms on which to build a crystal, the honey can remain stable and liquid for extended periods of time—or at least long enough to sell it.

Honey packers buy honey from many different sources and blend it in gigantic batches. Some of the honey will be high in fructose, but most will be high in glucose. Once mixed, the only effective way to slow the crystallization is to remove of all the particulates.

What is sad is the almost universal disdain for crystallized honey. By demanding clear liquid honey with no floaters, consumers have created a market for the over-processed, adulterated, pollen-free “honey” we see on store shelves. If only we could create a demand for the real thing.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Will it crystallize? Photo by Siona Karen.
Will it crystallize? Photo by Siona Karen.

Granulation: a stirring experience

A friend of mine was told by another beekeeper that if he stirred his honey vigorously three times a day for five days, granulation could be averted and the honey would remain clear and liquid. My friend wanted to know my opinion.

My first thought was that frequent stirring might delay—but not prevent—crystallization by interfering with crystal formation.

Granulation occurs when solid particles of glucose precipitate (separate) from the supersaturated liquid honey. Honey is a supersaturated liquid because it contains more sugar than can normally dissolve in an equal amount of water at room temperature.

Crystallization occurs when the glucose molecules begin to arrange themselves in a crystalline pattern around a “seed.” A seed can be any small particle such as a speck of dust, a grain of pollen, or a tiny piece of wax. When the solution is “at rest” this can happen quickly. When the solution is in motion, it takes longer.

Stirring also causes friction between the molecules, and friction produces heat. Keeping honey warm can delay crystallization because all that molecular jiggling (caused by the addition of heat energy) keeps the molecules from arranging themselves into crystals. Imagine sardines trying to line up in a can while break dancing.

On the other hand, stirring exposes more surface area to the air. This increased exposure to air is going to speed evaporation which will, in turn, expedite crystallization as soon as the honey is at rest.

In truth, the rate of crystallization is dependent on the ratio of glucose to fructose in the honey. As the percentage of glucose increases, so does the rate of crystallization. Stirring, heating, and chanting are just delay tactics.

I suspect the beekeeper who “discovered” that granulation could be averted by stirring three times a day for five days was dealing with a batch of honey that was higher in fructose than his other batches. All that stirring probably made no difference.

What he needs to do is take a well-combined batch of honey, divide it in two, stir half of it three times a day for five days, and do nothing to the other half. My guess is he won’t see much difference.

Rusty

HoneyBeeSuite.com

Why did my honey granulate?

This question, often followed by “What did I do wrong?” lands in my in-box nearly every day. No matter what you call it—sugaring, granulation, crystallization—it is an annoying and disappointing outcome, especially if it happens before you extract. To understand why it happens, you need to know something about sugars.

Most often, we use the word “sugar” to refer to the granulated white stuff we sprinkle on cereal or dump in tea. But sugar comes in many types. You have probably heard of sucrose, lactose, dextrose, fructose, maltose, and galactose. These are all sugars and there are even more.

Think about dogs for a moment. You probably have no trouble recognizing a dog when you see one. If you compare a collie, a terrier, and a dachshund, you will notice they all bark like dogs, walk like dogs, sniff like dogs, and wag like dogs. Yet in many respects they are very different from each other.

The same is true for sugars. They are sweet, they are edible, and they are all made from similar configurations of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. But they behave differently from each other and therefore have different uses.

Sucrose, known as “table sugar,” is actually composed of both glucose and fructose. It is these same two sugars—glucose and fructose—that affect the rate at which honey granulates.

Honey contains several types of sugar, but mostly glucose and fructose. Glucose granulates easily and quickly; fructose resists granulation. So if your honey has lots of glucose compared to the amount of fructose, it granulates quickly. If your honey is higher in fructose and lower in glucose, it will remain liquid for long periods.

So the answer to the second question is simple: you did nothing wrong. The amount of fructose and glucose in your honey is totally dependent on what the nectar contained. Some plants produce nectar very high in glucose, while some plants produce nectar very high in fructose. Most are in the middle.

Some beekeepers may say you extracted too late, kept the honey too cold, kept it too dry, etc. While it is true you can you sometimes delay granulation by using certain techniques, the root cause of the problem is still the ratio of glucose to fructose in the nectar.

Lucky for us, we usually know what kind of dog we’re getting before we take it home. Beekeepers, however, often don’t have a clue about the nectar coming into their hives. Only through experience will you learn about the nectar in your area and how it behaves.

Rusty

HoneyBeeSuite.com

How to keep 2:1 syrup from crystallizing

This question, asked by a reader, perplexes me because I’ve never had any 2:1 syrup crystallize. In fact, several different times in the past I’ve had a half gallon or so sit in the fridge all winter long with no problem.

The next question, then, is what did I put in it to prevent crystallization. The answer is nothing. Whenever I store syrup—which sometimes happens after I make too much in the fall—I don’t put anything in it. It’s just two parts sugar to one part water.

My suspicion is that people who have problems with crystallization are boiling the water after they measure it. Boiling—even for a short time—causes water loss through evaporation. Even heating the water just short of boiling drives off a lot of water.

The result of the evaporative loss is that the proportions are no longer 2:1—you are trying to dissolve 2 parts of sugar into less than 1 part of water. The sugar dissolves when the water is still hot but then crystallizes when it cools.

So here are my recommendations:

  • Don’t boil the water. I use hot tap water or I heat the water only slightly before adding the sugar. Dump the sugar in all at once before the water cools. It takes more stirring, but it works.
  • If you insist on boiling the water, add some extra—maybe an ounce or two—to compensate for what is going to boil away.
  • Alternatively, you can measure the water after you boil it.

If you have a container of crystallized syrup, you can add water to re-dissolve it or you can feed it to the bees inside an empty super. Either way you don’t have to waste the sugar.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite