Honey processing
Practical Action
Packaged honey
The wax cappings are removed from the honeycombs as
for strained honey. At larger scales of production,
electrically heated honey knives or ‘planes’ may be
used (Figure.1).
When extracting honey from top-bar frames, the frame
is placed over a dish, and the thin layer of wax capping
is cut from the bottom to the top of the frame and
allowed to fall into the dish below. The frame is then
turned and the capping on the other side is removed.
Honey that is stuck to the wax cappings is strained
using cloth bags as above.
The frame is then placed in a honey extractor (Figure.
2). Honey extractors can be manually or electrically
operated, depending on the scale of production, and
Figure 1: Electric uncapping
plane. Photo courtesy of Mazant
Honey Processing Equipment.
can be either ‘tangential’ or ‘radial’ type machines.
They extract the honey by spinning the frames at high
speed. In a tangential machine, the frames lie against the barrel of a drum and the outer side of
the frame empties when the drum is spinning. The frames are then turned so that the other face
of the honeycomb faces outwards, and the machine spun until this side is empty. This prevents
the inner part from bursting through the empty outer combs and so prevents the combs from
breaking. Although each frame has to be handled four times to load, turn and unload them, more
complete extraction can be achieved and this design is more compact and cheaper than radial
types. In a radial machine, the frames sit between rings, arranged like the spokes of a wheel and
honey is extracted from both sides simultaneously. Radial machines are larger then tangential
machines to ensure that the frames are far enough from the centre to extract properly, but they
can hold more frames than a tangential machine (e.g. a 20-frame radial extractor compared to
an 8-frame tangential machine).
The honey is collected in a pan, preferably made from food
grade plastic or stainless steel, and filtered through a nylon or
stainless steel filter unit that has progressively finer filters as
the honey moves to the outside of the filter unit. Some filters
are fitted with heaters to make the honey flow faster, but these
are not necessary in tropical climates and any increase in
temperature risks a reduction in the quality of the honey (see
below). The clear honey is then collected and packaged into
glass or plastic containers and labelled. The package should be
moistureproof to prevent the honey picking up moisture from
the air during storage.
Figure 2: Nine-frame electric
honey extractor.
Photo courtesy of Maxant
Honey Processing Equipment.
Because customers regard the colour of honey as an important
quality characteristic, the containers should preferably be
transparent so that customers can see the product. Glass jars
with screw-on lids or plastic pots with heat-sealed foil or plastic
lids may be used. In countries where glass or plastic containers
are difficult to obtain, heat-sealed plastic sachets are an
alternative.
The label on the container is important for attracting customers and a professionally designed
label that describes the source of the honey (e.g. sunflower, mixed blossom, tree honey etc.), its
purity, and the district it was produced in, can give a marketing advantage. Legally, in most
countries the label should have the following information:
The name of the product (i.e. pure honey)
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