Honey Harvesting and Transport

Author
FAO - AGS
Language
English
Document Type
Instructional Manual
Publisher
FAO
Pages
7
Commodities
honey
Topics
Harvesting, transport and handling of food commodities
Year
2007
The harvesting and transport of honey should follow some procedures, aiming at an efficient collection, but mainly to maintain its original characteristics, therefore the quality of the final product. The harvest of honey should not be accomplished in rainy days or when the relative humidity is high, because this would lead to an increased moisture indexes in the honey. The beekeeper should decided for those hours which there is less air humidity on the sunny days. When harvesting, the beekeeper should not throw smoke directly on the honeycombs; this should be performed at small amounts, by using the bee smoker far away from the frames of honeycombs. These procedures are followed in order to reduce the incorporation of the smokeable smell into both honey and beeswax, as well as detritus from the bee smoker. After harvesting, the frames of honeycombs should not stay exposed to the sun for long periods because high temperatures can lead to the an increased hydroxymetylfurfural content ( HMF) in the honey, reduced content of the main enzymes in honey (invertase, glucose oxidase and diastase), therefore endangering the honey quality.