Using a Refractometer

I bought this refractometer on EBay for around $50 a couple of years ago. If you buy one, be sure it is a refractometer designed to measure the amount of moisture in honey - there are many types of refractometers to measure liquids in a variety of ways. You don't want a refractometer for measuring motor oil if you are measuring honey!

Instruments that involve math-like operations or calibration just cow me and I have stared at this thing for as long as I have owned it.
I didn't know how to use it until I helped judge the honey contest with a certified Welsh honey judge in West Palm Beach at the Southeastern Organic Beekeepers Conference. Dr. Mikhail Kruglyakov taught me what to do. Thanks so much to him for his lesson.

So for any of you equally intimidated by the refractometer, here's a simple lesson in how to use it to measure the moisture content in your honey.

This is what the instrument looks like. The eyepiece is on the left end and the place for the honey is on the right.



You lift the plastic cover like so:



There's a pipette to use to place the droplet of honey on the refractometer, although I sometimes use a chop stick.



Then like in chemistry lab, you place the plastic top down on top of the droplet, flattening it on the viewing window.



I can't take a picture of the next step, which for me is first put on my glasses, then look through the eyepiece with the instrument held up toward the light. Then focus by twisting the dial near the eyepiece until you can read the chart. There you'll see the good or bad news.  The chart indicates the moisture level which you want to be at about 18.6%.

At first the reason that I thought I couldn't use the thing is that I didn't know I could focus it - so I would diligently put on my glasses, hold the loaded refractometer up to the light and see only a blur through the lens.

I thought something must be wrong - and it was - I hadn't focused the eyepiece!

Doing the Bees' Job for Them

When I first harvested the fully capped but too full of moisture honey, I posted on Beemaster and asked Cindy Bee by phone what I should do. Both places gave me the same advice - try to remove some of the moisture myself. So I put the honey for about a week on top of my dehumidifier. But the dehumidifier is in the basement and has to be emptied and started up again about three times a day.

At first the honey seemed to be thickening, but over the Fourth of July, I went to N Georgia and left the honey on top of the dehumidifier. I'm sure after the first day, the dehumidifier was full and so the honey sat in my humid basement for three days.

When I returned, the refractometer read even higher - a moisture reading of almost 22! Horrors!

 However, on my kitchen counter, the cappings were sitting in the filter part of the honey bucket, on top of the upturned top of the bucket where they had sat for the same amount of time. Honey had continued to filter out and was pooled around the edges of the top. I put a drop of that honey onto the refractometer and lo and behold, the moisture level was 18.2. So it is much drier in my den/kitchen than in my humid basement, even with the A/C left on 85 for all the days I was gone.

So I moved the honey upstairs to my den. Here it sits, under a constantly running ceiling fan and right beside the air conditioning outlet (see it close to the baseboard?). In one day the honey is below 20.2.



I did discover that I need to stir the honey about once a day. Otherwise the surface of the honey is less moist but the same amount of moisture remains in the lower levels of the bucket. I also couldn't stand the idea of uncovered honey so I put this cheesecloth over it and held it to the bucket with a rubber band.



At best I get honey that can be bottled. At worst I make mead or freeze this and feed it back to the bees in a baggie feeder in the fall.

A Bee Movie with Gina and Linda

Every year the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association holds a short course in January. We are always trying to improve the course. This year we are adding a movie on how to harvest honey two ways - extracting (Gina) and crush and strain (me). We are so lucky that we have in our club a beekeeper named Allen Facemire who is an Emmy-nominated film-maker and director. He offered to make a movie for us about extracting.

Here is Gina getting all miked-up before the filming begins.


Allen comes with amazing equipment - microphones, cameras, and lots and lots of expertise!



The first part of the movie is to film taking honey off of the hive without using any chemicals like Bee Quik or Bee Go. As followers of this blog know, I don't advocate the use of any poisons, so I just shake the bees off and carry the frames away from the hive.



Allen is filming me putting the harvested frames into a nuc box to carry inside. The nuc is at my feet covered with a towel to keep interested bees from exploring the honey I am harvesting.



We took two frames in from Gina's hives.  I had brought three frames of my honey from home.  Here is one of the frames before a hard shake to get the bees off.

This is our last snapshot.  We then got deeply involved in the bee movie.  Gina showed how to use an extractor and then I did crush and strain.  We bottled a couple of bottles of honey.  I thought my honey was awfully thin.

I took my honey bucket home to bottle the rest.  I kept thinking the honey was really thin.  I decided to put a drop on the refractometer.  This was fully capped honey and I have not been feeding my bees sugar syrup this entire season.  To my horror, the moisture level was 20.2.  Honey is too moist above 18.6 so this was honey with way too much moisture.

I've always relied on taking fully capped honey, believing that the bees don't cap honey that is so moist that it will ferment.  Well, not so this time.  I called Cindy Bee who told me to put the bucket with a dehumidifier and maybe it could be de-moisturized enough.  I posted on Beemaster to find out what people thought was behind this.  One theory was that we are in a heavily humid area and maybe the bees just quit before they evaporated the moisture because it has been humid and rainy.  Who knows?

Maybe I should make mead.......that way the inevitable fermenting is invited!

A Bee By-Product

This is not going to be my year for honey. The honey I harvested for the movie on honey harvest that Gina and I made on Sunday was very thin. I was worried about how runny it was - it was all from fully capped frames - so I put a drop in my refractometer. I didn't like what I read on the refractometer so I tried another drop and another and another. All read the same: 20.2. Honey with a higher percentage of moisture than 18.6 is likely to ferment and is substandard honey (to quote Cindy Bee). So I am without a good crop since that was my only possible box to harvest.

Cindy and the people on the Beemaster forum suggested that I put it with the dehumidifier and maybe that would dry it out some. I am not optimistic although it has been on top of the dehumidifier all day.

Of course, maybe I'll learn to make mead and use this thin honey for a new project!

The gift the bees have given me this year is a lot of cucumbers. The cucumbers in my garden are all gorgeous and perfectly straight. None of those poorly pollinated crooked cucumbers are to be found in my garden with these great bees around.

So tonight for the second time this June, I made pickles.  I made a second recipe of sweet pickle relish because it's so great to have around when you want to make tuna salad.  I also made four pints of bread and butter pickles.

Even though I will probably go honey-less this year, I will thank my bees each time I eat tuna salad!