Important temperatures in beekeeping

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Bees & beekeeping: Crucial temperatures and other figures

Hive:

Temp

RH

CO2

35°C +/-0.5

45%

0.1-4.3%

 Effects of temperature and time on diastase and HMF

Temperature

Time to halve diastase level

Time to raise HMF to 30 mg/kg

20°C

1500 days

300 days

30°C

200 days

60 days

52°C

3 days

70°C

5 hours

4.5 hours

Normal diastase level is 40 – 8 is legal limit (i.e. the higher the better)

HMF is very low in fresh honey – legal limit is 40 mg/kg (i.e. the lower the better)

Action

Temperature

period

To filter honey

36°C (35-38°C)

3-4 days? Until liquid?

To prepare ling for filtration

49°C

As necessary to reach uniform temp

To store long term

<10°C

12 months

To warm granulated (seed) honey to produce soft set

32°C

2-3 days

To liquefy honey prior to seeding

66°C

Until liquid

To bottle honey

49°C

24 hrs

To blend different honeys

49°C

As necessary to reach uniform temp

To granulate quickly

14°C


To delay granulation (Yates)

54°C

45 minutes

To delay granulation (Doug Brown, BBKA News Aug 2012)

63°C

1 hr

To spoil honey by “burning”

71-82°C

To destroy yeasts

63°C

30 minutes

To caramelize ling honey (not good!)

>66°C

To degrade honey

>35-40°C

To melt beeswax

64°C

Phil Khorassandjian

Jan 2014