Harvesting honey
The harvest is the moment many beekeepers look forward to all year. Done well, it gives you clean, stable honey that keeps for ages and tastes exactly as the bees intended. Done in a rush, you risk wet, fermenting honey or a sticky kitchen and a frustrated colony.
This page walks through the whole flow: knowing when honey is ripe, getting the supers off the hive, extracting, filtering, settling, and finally jarring and labelling. As you go, record each batch in Openbeehive so you always know what came from where.
Food hygiene and labelling rules for selling honey vary widely by country and region. Treat the guidance here as general good practice, and always check your local regulations before selling.
Is the honey ripe?
Bees ripen nectar into honey by fanning off water and then capping the cells with wax. Capping is their signal that the honey is finished and stable.
The reliable rule of thumb: a comb is ready when roughly 80% or more of the cells are capped. For the uncapped remainder, use the shake test — hold the frame horizontally and give it a sharp jerk. If nectar sprays out, it is still too wet; if nothing comes out, it is ripe.
The objective measure is water content, read with a honey refractometer:
| Water content | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Under 18% | Excellent, very stable |
| 18–20% | Fine for harvest and storage |
| Over 20% | Too wet — risk of fermentation; leave longer or dry it |
Heather (Calluna) honey is an exception — it is thixotropic (jelly-like) and naturally holds more water, often up to around 23%. It also cannot be spun normally without pressing or stirring. Treat it as a special case.
Removing the supers
Take honey only from the supers, never the brood box, and leave the colony enough stores for the season ahead. Harvest on a warm day when the honey flows easily.
You need to clear the bees off the combs first. Common methods:
- Clearer boards (escape boards): fitted between brood box and supers a day or two before. One-way bee escapes let bees down into the brood nest but not back up, so the supers are nearly empty when you collect them. Gentle and effective.
- Brushing or shaking: sweep or shake bees off each frame at the hive. Quick for small numbers of frames but more disruptive.
- Blowers or chemical clearers: used in larger operations; not usually needed for hobby beekeepers.
Open honey and exposed combs trigger robbing. Keep supers covered, work quickly, and do not leave sticky equipment out in the apiary.
Extracting
Work in a clean, bee-tight room. Warm honey flows better, so extract on the day of removal if you can, or keep frames somewhere warm.
- Uncapping. Remove the wax cappings with an uncapping fork, a serrated knife, or a heated knife. Catch the cappings — they hold honey and good wax.
- Spinning. Place frames in an extractor and spin. Tangential extractors need turning to do both faces; radial extractors do both at once. Start slow to avoid blowing out the comb, then build up speed.
- Draining. Let the honey run from the extractor tap through a coarse strainer.
If you grow cut-comb or section honey, you skip extraction entirely and simply cut and pack the comb.
Filtering, settling and moisture
Strain the honey to remove wax, bits of comb and the odd bee leg. A double sieve (coarse then fine) is plenty for most home harvests; avoid over-filtering, which strips out pollen and beneficial particles.
Then settle the honey in a tank for a day or two. Air bubbles and fine debris rise to form a froth you can skim off the top, leaving clear honey beneath.
If honey came in a little wet, you can reduce moisture by keeping it warm (around 30 °C, not hot) with low humidity and good airflow before jarring. Never overheat honey — high temperatures destroy enzymes, darken the colour and create HMF. Gentle warmth only.
Jarring, storage and labelling
Jar into clean, dry containers. Glass with a good seal is ideal. Stir crystallising honey for a smooth set, or warm gently to re-liquefy.
Store jars somewhere cool, dark and dry. Properly ripened honey keeps for years; crystallisation is natural and harmless, not a sign of spoilage.
For labelling — especially if you sell — most jurisdictions expect some or all of:
- The word honey and, where claimed, the type or floral source
- Net weight
- Your name and address (the responsible food business)
- A lot/batch number for traceability
- A best-before date (commonly two to three years; check local rules)
- Country of origin where required
Never give or sell honey to infants under 12 months. Honey can contain spores that cause infant botulism. This warning is legally required in many countries.
Hygiene basics
- Wash hands and keep all surfaces, tools and containers food-clean.
- Keep the extracting room free of pets, smoke and contaminants.
- Use food-grade buckets, tanks and taps only.
- Keep raw water away from honey, and dry equipment thoroughly.
Record the harvest in Openbeehive
Log every batch as a Harvest so you can trace each lot back to its apiary, hive and date — exactly the kind of traceability your labels promise.
For each harvest, record details such as the source hive or apiary, the date, the quantity (weight or number of jars), the honey type, and your lot number. Add notes on water content, taste or set, and attach a photo if you like.
Because Openbeehive is offline-first, you can record harvests right at the hive or in the extracting room with no signal — everything syncs later. The lot number you save here is the same one to print on the jar, closing the loop from comb to shelf.
See Harvests in the app for how to enter and manage your harvest records, and the wider beekeeping guide for the season around the harvest.