How to harvest honey: when it's ready, extraction, storage and crystallisation

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Harvesting honey is the moment most beekeepers wait for. Take it too early and it can ferment in the jar; take too much and the colony may struggle through winter. This guide covers how to tell when honey is ready, how to get it out of the comb, and how to store it.

Leave enough for the bees

Honey is the colony's winter food. Only take honey from the supers, the boxes above the brood area, and leave the colony with enough stores for the winter in your climate. Your local association can tell you what is usual where you are. In the first year, many beekeepers take little or nothing.

When is honey ready?

Bees collect nectar, which is mostly water, and dry it down into honey. When the moisture content is low enough, they seal each cell with a wax capping.

Capped honey is ripe honey. Look for frames where most of the cells are capped. Common guidance is to take frames that are at least about three-quarters capped on both sides.
The shake test: hold an uncapped frame horizontally over the hive and give it a sharp shake. If nectar rains out, it is not ready.
A refractometer measures moisture directly. Honey with a moisture content above roughly 18 to 20 per cent is at risk of fermenting. Test samples from several frames, because outer frames are often wetter than the middle ones.

Honey that is too wet can ferment in storage, turning sour and frothy.

Taking the frames off

Remove the bees from the supers with as little disturbance as possible:

A clearer board placed under the supers a day or two beforehand lets bees go down but not back up.
Brushing or shaking bees off individual frames works for a small harvest.

Work quickly, keep supers covered, and do not leave honey exposed in the open, which triggers robbing by bees and wasps.

Extraction

Do this indoors, in a clean kitchen or room with doors and windows closed.

Uncap the cells with an uncapping knife or fork, slicing or lifting the wax cappings into a tray.
Spin the frames in an extractor, which flings honey out of the cells by centrifugal force. Spin one side partly, turn, spin the other side fully, then go back to finish the first, so heavy full combs do not break.
Strain the honey through a coarse and then a finer sieve to remove wax and bits of bee.
Settle it in a bucket with a tap for a day or two, so air bubbles and fine wax rise to the top.
Jar it from the tap into clean, dry jars.

Without an extractor, you can crush and strain: cut the comb out, crush it and let the honey drip through a sieve. You lose the drawn comb, which the bees then have to rebuild. Or keep it as cut comb honey. Many associations lend extractors to members, which saves buying one. Give the extracted frames back to the bees to clean, or store them away from wax moth. Melt down the cappings for beeswax.

Storing honey

Use clean, dry, airtight jars. Moisture is the enemy.
Store at room temperature, away from direct heat and sunlight.
Properly ripened honey keeps for a very long time.

Crystallisation

Almost all honey crystallises eventually, some within days and some after many months, depending on its sugar balance, which depends on the flowers. Oilseed rape honey, for example, sets very quickly.

Crystallised honey is not spoiled. It is still perfectly good to eat.
To make it runny again, stand the jar in warm water and stir occasionally. Use gentle heat. Strong heating darkens honey, changes its flavour and destroys some of its natural enzymes.
Many beekeepers deliberately make soft set or creamed honey by seeding liquid honey with finely crystallised honey and stirring it, which gives a smooth, spreadable texture.

Safety notes

Never give honey to a baby under 12 months old. Honey can carry spores of the bacteria that cause infant botulism, and heat treatment does not make it safe.
Do not feed honey from another source to your bees: it can carry disease spores, including foulbrood.
If you plan to sell honey, check the labelling and hygiene rules where you live first.

How did your harvest go this year, and how do you deal with crystallised honey? Share your tips and questions in the comments.