Have talked a while ago to a bee keeper who does it and as far as I still remember he said the honey he puts in the freezer, crystallized or not I'm not sure anymore, I would
think crystallized, after thawing it out he whips the honey and that's all.
Konrad

I make a lot and sell a lot of creamed honey. and I've seen bad advice on the Internet and tasted some really gritty creamed honey, which was basically ground crystalized honey.

Do a google on dyce creamed honey.

in a nutshell, heat your liquid honey to 150 and then quickly cool. Add flavoring. When back at room temp you add in about 10% good creamed honey. Stollers/Golden Harvest has it, so look at more stores in your area. YOu can also get it mail order from Dadant, I think.

mix the creamed honey with a food grade drill powered paint stirrer, pour into containers, and set at approx 55° for a week or so, and you're done.

if you set aside several pounds of your crop and keep refrigerated, you will have seed for next year.

{{gwi:433854}}

what? no comments on my honey label?

Personally I see no need to heat the honey before creaming it. I simply mix in 5-10% seed, store at 40-60 degrees (an unheated garage in the fall works great here), and mix daily until it really starts thickening up. The time it takes varies from season to season (ie. by source of the honey), but typically takes from a few days to a week.

I make a lot for health food stores who want completely unheated honey and honey strait from the extractor (with bits of wax, etc. in it). The liquid honey just crystalizes too fast to keep on the shelf all year long.

Nice label ccrb1. I haven't had the guts to try that yet :)

-Tim

The idea of heating the honey is to stop the normal crystalization process, which produces a crunchier or grittier product. By heating you completely cancel out that honey. Then when cool and adding in your seed creamed honey, you get exactly the crystals you want.

My creamed honey is like velvet on the tongue. But you're right, it's not raw. It also has no lumps of wax in it.

Even with the strained honey, I don't find it creams with any grittyness when unheated given a good seed and the right temperatures. Now if I wait too long after havest and it sets up on it's own you will have to heat it first.

-Tim

ccrb 1
Excellent picture and marketing strategy!

How did you get the bees so nicely to stay, symmetrical on the lower portion of head?
Do you need the queen or does smearing on some honey will do?
Konrad

No comment?

Konrad said:

Excellent picture and marketing strategy!

How did you get the bees so nicely to stay, symmetrical on the lower portion of head?
Do you need the queen or does smearing on some honey will do?
Konrad

My reply:

Sorry, I didn't see this until today. The bee beard is sculpted using a credit card. Mostly to keep the bees out of my eyes. Not all bee beards look that good, in fact this was the best ever (which is why it's on the label.). My photo with a bee beard was published in a british bee book two or three years ago. :-)

see a bunch of other bee beard photos at my website. And... don't do it anymore. The last time was a year ago August.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bluffwood Creek Honey (look for the link on bee beards)

By the way. Credit where it is due. The bee beard involves the skill of the bee wrangler who sets it up, and sculpts the beard. The guy who did it for me, I think the world of, and he's a great beekeeper, and teacher.

Me? I provided the face, stay calm and don't react to the occasional sting.

And no, no honey is involved. The queen is.

Thank you ccrb1!
It's nice to see....you are doing a good job of educating the Jung generation!
Thanks again for sharing this information!
Konrad