Thank you for the information. I put my jars and buckets in a hot water bath . I got a old bathtub I fill it up and I use a old livestock tank heater to warm it up.
I would wire the fan in the top of the freezer if it works and have it to come on with the heat lamp to circulate the heat faster. All you need is a double socket and a cord with a plug to wire it up.❤️🐝
It actually is wired, but the motor burned up. I need to find another motor and get it going. You’re absolutely correct and when it quit, I noticed a difference for sure.
Looks like you have your favorite pastime waiting with all of those boxes that need assembled. I h have to make me a old freezer to do that. Homemade stuff usually works best!!! Thanks Mike!!
I have a great heat box! It's parked in my driveway! I put crystalized bottled honey in a tray and keep it in the cargo area of my Escape for a couple of days and it works great! But it's important to put the bottles on a shallow plastic or metal tray (I use jelly roll cookie sheets or a shallow under-bed storage box) in case of any leakage. You would never be able to get honey out of automobile carpet! You could use plastic sheeting, too, but I like to use a tray with some sides to contain any leaks that might happen. Crack the windows to control the temperature.
Great simple work. I have the Maxant wax melter that has a tray in the bottom. Fill with water so it stays below the rim of a bucket if crystalized or when it is cold and set it at 95 degrees. Works overnight and it goes right into Maxant 25 gallon bottling tank . I like your big freezer!
Mike,😁aint nothing wrong with 2nd🤚brand-new👍it's the back-bone of my operation.🤣 Have a great weekend Mike, you just gave me some great ideas buddy.👍👍👍
Hey Mike, two years ago I got a hot box from a recently departed beekeeper. I added a digital thermal switch off of Amazon to regulate the temperature. I have it set to 104°F. Last year I did a goof. I.e. left the sensor out of the hot box and ended up cooking a bunch of bottles of honey in the order of a couple gallons. I need a big reefer like yours to store honey. The local dump has freezers sitting there. Oh the possibilities. Got to plug in the bucket blanket on my bottling tank before it crystallizes.
Oh wow, yea, I suppose with no shit off, it just got super heated. What you said is key, about the possibilities. So many different ways to build and innovate. That’s what is fun with this hobby, the different ways everyone comes up with and still arrives at the same destination😀
Mike, as always you’ve produced another fine video. I really like your box with the dimmer switch. That would be a very reasonable an inexpensive way for a small hobbyist like me to decrystallize honey. That could be built with a couple of deep hive boxes and still not cost much or even an old 48 quart ice cooler. Thanks for the video!
@MikeBarryBees Well you know sometimes it is just inevitable. I think your insistence of not doing how to media causes this to feel more like a way to do and not...this is how you should do it. So I think you are good!
Mike, I have a broken 7 cf chest freezer set to 90 degrees with all my filled bottles and a bucket in it. Works great and 0 cost. Thanks for the video, as always.
Interesting video, thanks for the ideas, it's along the ways I would do it. I never plan on having more than a few horizontal hives, I just want to see honeybees back in my area, we used to have so many when I was growing up and I went a few years without seeing any for a couple of years till last summer. I don't know of any beekeepers within a 5 mile radius of my area.
Yes Tommy, if you're just dealing with a few hives, many other ways to streamline the solid honey deal. I think a little heater box or heating blanket is something nice to have in case you need to send out a few bottles. We all find what works for us and go from there as we grow, shrink, or just maintain what we have. Thanks Tommy!!
It’s my first year with a heated bottler. It was great. My freezer just quit this month. Good idea on what I can do with it. Thanks for the video Mike. Take care.
You are likely correct for someone with lots of honey. But for my less than half full jar of honey, a pan of hot water works fine. Even with a full jar of honey that got itself lost behind other items in my pantry, I would be embarrassed to return to the beekeeper to re-liquify the honey that crystalized while in my home. Especially since it was a liquid when I originally bought it. It's now my honey and my responsibility.
I have same thing basically. Very nice.i didn't use bluebird controller I used a repti pro incubator and leave it on 24 -7 also .I know beginners setting honey outside in full sun but I'm sure their too hot.i had 5gallon heater blanket,way too slow for me a week or more...
@MikeBarryBees oh I bet ! I had some behind seat of truck that'd been really hot and it thinned it really bad and broke it down I believe cause it was off ,turned it gross and metallic lid leached too.Its really hot here ,gotta be bad there be safe best ya can!
No Eddy, I don’t. I just let the honey do what it does as I re-liquify it. I am careful with temps so that I don’t keep it warm too long. It will dry out more in some cases, but once honey is in bulk, meaning out of the comb, it’s very hard to get moisture out of it, even with heat, so it stays pretty consistent.
Great stuff!! I totally agree about the bottling tank. My only regret is that I did not buy mine sooner. It makes bottling honey in winter so much easier.
Good stuff Mike. My HVAC buddy gifted me a broken roll around undercounter bar refrigerator. I put a wipable countertop on it and then I put my bottler on it and so I can have my honey warmer and bottler on wheels.
Ken, I’ll have to look, but you can find many like it on Amazon. Something like this is way easier than what I have. I had to wire mine. But I’ll still take a look and get back to you. www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Max-1200W-Temperature-Controller-Greenhouse/dp/B01HXM5UAC/ref=mp_s_a_1_6_sspa?crid=2R9M9N63FSBTJ&keywords=120v+thermostat+switch&qid=1690897811&sprefix=120v+th%2Caps%2C189&sr=8-6-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfbXRm&psc=1
I like that box you built Mike. Stock up on bulbs. I have a heated wrap that goes around my 5 gallon buckets. I want to get a heated bottling tank, maybe that’ll be my conference purchase.
I have definitely been buying incandescent bulbs every time I see them. I'll need to go to a terrarium heater when they run out. Heat lamps I'm hoping will stay around for a while.
Great video but all I can see is all of that work behind you. All of the stacks of un-built boxes and frames. I have quite a few to build myself. Anyway, a quick way I have found to un-crystalize honey is to set the buckets out in the sun. Here in Ga it takes a single afternoon and it's all liquid again :-) Take care my friend.
Yep, always plenty of work laying around. Well, I am going to remember this comment as get those Bee Castle colonies rolling next year with honey supers and you are stacking buckets in every nook and cranny in your garage......LOL!!!
@@MikeBarryBees I just bought an uncapper and a new extractor. No more 12 hour uncapping sessions for me. I will be building supers all winter long. I have a plan for the Bee Castle yard next year. I hope it pays off.
So your honey is crystallized? You melt the crystals and sell it. Now, how long does the honey stay liquid for the customer? Not long before it recrystallizes so the customer is screwed. My suggestion is to permanently crystallize the melted crystallized honey into "creamed honey". The customer buys it as such. It is 100% totally usable forever and you have no worries of customer satisfaction. I'm not a beekeeper. But, when I buy honey (by the gallon), I seed it to cream honey and never worry about it in the pantry. It's just "how I do honey".😊
Well, you’re right, that’s how you do it. And this is how I do it. I’d does not immediately re-crystallize and it’s initial crystallization is normal for a lot of different honeys. Show me a packer or a beekeeper that sells any significant amount of honey that doesn’t have to deal with this. It’s part of the process when a few thousand pounds are produced. You deal with a couple gallons at a time, so really, that’s night and day with how beekeepers that produce honey deal with it. It’s never pasteurized and my customers understand where my honey is produced, by which hives, and what happens to it if not consumed in a number of months. Crystallization is a sign that the honey has never been overheated and pasteurized.
I want to buy some of your honey with your autograph on the label “ World Famous Mike Barry “ ! I am a disabled Veteran living in Iowa . How do I buy it from you ?
Ahh, Iowa, the land of soybean and corn. Just passed thru there last week. Well, I don’t really sell outside of local and do shipping because it’s pricy to ship, almost more than the honey, as well as different cottage food laws in different states. But I could send you some since it’s just a kind of ‘one off’ request.
I get warming it before bottling and all but with that many buckets all over how do you keep that from turning in the buckets or do you constantly rotate them in and out until you sell it all? I'm very curious as I have buckets and I have to pull more today and I don't have a way yet to move /Sell it all as it is
Scott, the buckets do get solid. There’s no abounding that. I put two in the heater box so that when it’s time to fill the bottler, they are semi liquid or at least loosened up some. The bottler finishes them all the way. Then I take two more buckets that are solid and put them in until it’s again time to fill the bottler and in that time, they loosen up for me. So on and so forth. Without a giant heating tank, everything stored with the honey we collect down here is going to become solid in a few weeks, whether drums or buckets.
I’m ripping off no one. If you are as knowledgeable as you claim to be, you would understand what causes crystallization in different nectar sources, yeasts, sucrose, glucose, temperatures, etc. The only way to have tallow honey NOT eventually crystallize would be to pasteurize it, which now renders it not raw. And my customers understand that. You obviously do not.
@@MikeBarryBees Lol it was an in house beekeeping gag, The moment I see a haze in the honey I cream it, before it gets the chance to crystalize. I have a fridge like yours but larger and I use it to liquefy honey before adding it to my creamer. I have a lot of canola, hawthorn and ivy honey that sets like a brick in the barrels and buckets, and creaming is the only solution. I add 10% of my previous batches of creamed honey to the creamer just to kick off the crystal seeding. Keep smiling bud and hurry up and take it easy.
@@sentimentalbloke7586 well then, I most humbly apologize for jumping to conclusions and taking your comment out of context. I understand your point. Thanks for clearing that up and again, apologies extended.
Yes indeed, pasteurization will prevent crystallization, but I sell my honey raw. The pasteurization deems it no longer raw. Do I end up dealing with crystals. Not a huge problem, just a mere annoyance.
@@MikeBarryBees I real don't think that pasteurization take away any thing of being a raw honey, all it does is kill bacteria, and honey really doesn't have any bacteria when these commercial bee guy push the gain, to supply the markets like giant food lion Walmart they push sugar and syrup yrs long , then it is filtered 20 times, in my opinion that is where they lose in the taste and pure honey just simple pasteurization I don't think it takes much away of the raw honey foundation
@@andrewklahold2880 actually, pasteurization does render it no longer raw. If it’s pasteurized, it’s not raw. I see what you’re saying, but taking it up to temperature like that kills enzymes as well. It will still be honey without the pressure filtration process, but it’s no longer raw.
Like raising bees, a lot of different ways ,I set a jar in sun and it decystaized. Thanks you for the video
Yes indeed Russell. Thanks so much for watching!!
nice ...i use a heating pad around the pail and that silver wrap 2 days melts a pail ....cheers thanks for the vids
Thanks for sharing your process!! Lots of great ideas coming up in the comments.
thanks for the great ideas. I just got a used bottling tank, what a game changer
Congrats and I agree, game changer for sure!!
Good stuff Mike, thanks
Thanks Nathan!
I put my bottled honey in the dishwasher on regular cycle. Works great.
Well, I have to say, that’s the first I’ve ever heard of that. Very intriguing!
Thank you for the information. I put my jars and buckets in a hot water bath . I got a old bathtub I fill it up and I use a old livestock tank heater to warm it up.
Thanks for sharing your process!! Comments have been great with sharing ideas Kent!!
I would wire the fan in the top of the freezer if it works and have it to come on with the heat lamp to circulate the heat faster. All you need is a double socket and a cord with a plug to wire it up.❤️🐝
It actually is wired, but the motor burned up. I need to find another motor and get it going. You’re absolutely correct and when it quit, I noticed a difference for sure.
@MikeBarryBees you could use a bathroom vent fan i used 1 for a quail brooder and it worked perfect and not that expensive
The bottler is the bomb. Best investment in the operation.
Agree 100%!!!
Great video Mike! Thanks!!! 😃
Thanks!! Hope all is well out your way.
Looks like you have your favorite pastime waiting with all of those boxes that need assembled. I h have to make me a old freezer to do that. Homemade stuff usually works best!!! Thanks Mike!!
I'll do those in my spare time....oh wait, I don't have any of that.....Thanks Rodney.
I have a great heat box! It's parked in my driveway! I put crystalized bottled honey in a tray and keep it in the cargo area of my Escape for a couple of days and it works great! But it's important to put the bottles on a shallow plastic or metal tray (I use jelly roll cookie sheets or a shallow under-bed storage box) in case of any leakage. You would never be able to get honey out of automobile carpet! You could use plastic sheeting, too, but I like to use a tray with some sides to contain any leaks that might happen. Crack the windows to control the temperature.
Another innovative idea!! Thanks for posting your process!
Great simple work. I have the Maxant wax melter that has a tray in the bottom. Fill with water so it stays below the rim of a bucket if crystalized or when it is cold and set it at 95 degrees. Works overnight and it goes right into Maxant 25 gallon bottling tank . I like your big freezer!
Thanks Jerry!! I have never tried the wax melter yet on the buckets.
Great info! Great Video!
Thanks!!
Basically what I did as well and it works great
Yep, finally got a good system for my size operation.
So many options and at different levels of beekeeping.Thanks Mike.
Yes indeed, I agree!!
Mike,😁aint nothing wrong with 2nd🤚brand-new👍it's the back-bone of my operation.🤣
Have a great weekend Mike, you just gave me some great ideas buddy.👍👍👍
Thanks Brother!!! And glad you picked up some ideas. Some great ideas in the comments as well from other beekeepers.
Great video Mike. Good info
Thanks Greg!
thank you for the great tips ,
You are so welcome! Thanks for watching.
Hey Mike, two years ago I got a hot box from a recently departed beekeeper. I added a digital thermal switch off of Amazon to regulate the temperature. I have it set to 104°F. Last year I did a goof. I.e. left the sensor out of the hot box and ended up cooking a bunch of bottles of honey in the order of a couple gallons. I need a big reefer like yours to store honey. The local dump has freezers sitting there. Oh the possibilities. Got to plug in the bucket blanket on my bottling tank before it crystallizes.
Oh wow, yea, I suppose with no shit off, it just got super heated. What you said is key, about the possibilities. So many different ways to build and innovate. That’s what is fun with this hobby, the different ways everyone comes up with and still arrives at the same destination😀
Thank you for the video 😊
My pleasure 😊!!Thanks for watching!
Mike, as always you’ve produced another fine video. I really like your box with the dimmer switch. That would be a very reasonable an inexpensive way for a small hobbyist like me to decrystallize honey. That could be built with a couple of deep hive boxes and still not cost much or even an old 48 quart ice cooler. Thanks for the video!
Thanks Don!! Yep, super easy to make for sure, and cheap if you use scrap.
I am glad to see you are showing us how do do it! I agree that a bottler saves lots of time.
I really didn't mean to, Ha, Ha, Ha!!
@MikeBarryBees Well you know sometimes it is just inevitable. I think your insistence of not doing how to media causes this to feel more like a way to do and not...this is how you should do it. So I think you are good!
Thanks Mike, great info !
Thanks!!
Mike, I have a broken 7 cf chest freezer set to 90 degrees with all my filled bottles and a bucket in it. Works great and 0 cost. Thanks for the video, as always.
Good deal Hope. Thanks for watching!!
Interesting video, thanks for the ideas, it's along the ways I would do it. I never plan on having more than a few horizontal hives, I just want to see honeybees back in my area, we used to have so many when I was growing up and I went a few years without seeing any for a couple of years till last summer. I don't know of any beekeepers within a 5 mile radius of my area.
Yes Tommy, if you're just dealing with a few hives, many other ways to streamline the solid honey deal. I think a little heater box or heating blanket is something nice to have in case you need to send out a few bottles. We all find what works for us and go from there as we grow, shrink, or just maintain what we have. Thanks Tommy!!
It’s my first year with a heated bottler. It was great. My freezer just quit this month. Good idea on what I can do with it. Thanks for the video Mike. Take care.
Bottlers are a game changer in my opinion Garry.
Great ideas 💡...better than putting on the stove with hot water
Thanks brother and I agree!!
You are likely correct for someone with lots of honey. But for my less than half full jar of honey, a pan of hot water works fine. Even with a full jar of honey that got itself lost behind other items in my pantry, I would be embarrassed to return to the beekeeper to re-liquify the honey that crystalized while in my home. Especially since it was a liquid when I originally bought it. It's now my honey and my responsibility.
Coooool 😎
Thanks!!
Thanks for the video Mike. I've been thinking about getting a bottler tank because I'm tired of fighting the leaky gate valves.
Yep, I agree, I hate those gate valves. Always a drip or two on the floor or counter. It was my best investment with regard to honey production.
You can use stacked deep boxes and a box top to contain your crystallized honey.
Yep, another good idea.
I have same thing basically. Very nice.i didn't use bluebird controller I used a repti pro incubator and leave it on 24 -7 also .I know beginners setting honey outside in full sun but I'm sure their too hot.i had 5gallon heater blanket,way too slow for me a week or more...
I know down here if you leave it on the dash of a car in the afternoon in summer, it'll burn within 4 hours.
@MikeBarryBees oh I bet ! I had some behind seat of truck that'd been really hot and it thinned it really bad and broke it down I believe cause it was off ,turned it gross and metallic lid leached too.Its really hot here ,gotta be bad there be safe best ya can!
Mike, do you have to add any water to the melted honey (less than 18.5%) to prevent it from rapidly recrystalizing? Love that honey house!
No Eddy, I don’t. I just let the honey do what it does as I re-liquify it. I am careful with temps so that I don’t keep it warm too long. It will dry out more in some cases, but once honey is in bulk, meaning out of the comb, it’s very hard to get moisture out of it, even with heat, so it stays pretty consistent.
Great stuff!! I totally agree about the bottling tank. My only regret is that I did not buy mine sooner. It makes bottling honey in winter so much easier.
Thanks and Yes indeed Randall. It was a great investment.
We soak in warm water but that's a very small operation
That works well too. I've done it many times. I always say to find what works for each of us and refine as we need.
Good stuff Mike. My HVAC buddy gifted me a broken roll around undercounter bar refrigerator. I put a wipable countertop on it and then I put my bottler on it and so I can have my honey warmer and bottler on wheels.
Thanks Richard. Yea, that’s a pretty cool setup. One unit able to move easily, I like compact and neat.
I enjoyed the video, Mike. Nice setups you have for warming honey. My cousin has that bottler, they are super nice!
Thanks Jason!! Appreciate you taking the time to watch and to make a comment! I love my bottler for sure too!
Hey Mike. Thanks for the overview. Do you have a link or model # of the thermostat you are using on your commercial cabinet/warmer.
Ken, I’ll have to look, but you can find many like it on Amazon. Something like this is way easier than what I have. I had to wire mine. But I’ll still take a look and get back to you.
www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Max-1200W-Temperature-Controller-Greenhouse/dp/B01HXM5UAC/ref=mp_s_a_1_6_sspa?crid=2R9M9N63FSBTJ&keywords=120v+thermostat+switch&qid=1690897811&sprefix=120v+th%2Caps%2C189&sr=8-6-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfbXRm&psc=1
And THATS why yer world famous😀!
Well, I don't know about that, ha, ha, ha!!
I have 1 horizontal hive
That'll be what I go to as I scale down and go into retirement in a few years.
I like that box you built Mike. Stock up on bulbs. I have a heated wrap that goes around my 5 gallon buckets. I want to get a heated bottling tank, maybe that’ll be my conference purchase.
I have definitely been buying incandescent bulbs every time I see them. I'll need to go to a terrarium heater when they run out. Heat lamps I'm hoping will stay around for a while.
Great video but all I can see is all of that work behind you. All of the stacks of un-built boxes and frames. I have quite a few to build myself. Anyway, a quick way I have found to un-crystalize honey is to set the buckets out in the sun. Here in Ga it takes a single afternoon and it's all liquid again :-) Take care my friend.
Yep, always plenty of work laying around. Well, I am going to remember this comment as get those Bee Castle colonies rolling next year with honey supers and you are stacking buckets in every nook and cranny in your garage......LOL!!!
@@MikeBarryBees I just bought an uncapper and a new extractor. No more 12 hour uncapping sessions for me. I will be building supers all winter long. I have a plan for the Bee Castle yard next year. I hope it pays off.
So your honey is crystallized? You melt the crystals and sell it. Now, how long does the honey stay liquid for the customer? Not long before it recrystallizes so the customer is screwed. My suggestion is to permanently crystallize the melted crystallized honey into "creamed honey". The customer buys it as such. It is 100% totally usable forever and you have no worries of customer satisfaction. I'm not a beekeeper. But, when I buy honey (by the gallon), I seed it to cream honey and never worry about it in the pantry. It's just "how I do honey".😊
Well, you’re right, that’s how you do it. And this is how I do it. I’d does not immediately re-crystallize and it’s initial crystallization is normal for a lot of different honeys. Show me a packer or a beekeeper that sells any significant amount of honey that doesn’t have to deal with this. It’s part of the process when a few thousand pounds are produced. You deal with a couple gallons at a time, so really, that’s night and day with how beekeepers that produce honey deal with it. It’s never pasteurized and my customers understand where my honey is produced, by which hives, and what happens to it if not consumed in a number of months. Crystallization is a sign that the honey has never been overheated and pasteurized.
I want to buy some of your honey with your autograph on the label “ World Famous Mike Barry “ ! I am a disabled Veteran living in Iowa . How do I buy it from you ?
Ahh, Iowa, the land of soybean and corn. Just passed thru there last week. Well, I don’t really sell outside of local and do shipping because it’s pricy to ship, almost more than the honey, as well as different cottage food laws in different states. But I could send you some since it’s just a kind of ‘one off’ request.
I get warming it before bottling and all but with that many buckets all over how do you keep that from turning in the buckets or do you constantly rotate them in and out until you sell it all? I'm very curious as I have buckets and I have to pull more today and I don't have a way yet to move /Sell it all as it is
Scott, the buckets do get solid. There’s no abounding that. I put two in the heater box so that when it’s time to fill the bottler, they are semi liquid or at least loosened up some. The bottler finishes them all the way. Then I take two more buckets that are solid and put them in until it’s again time to fill the bottler and in that time, they loosen up for me. So on and so forth. Without a giant heating tank, everything stored with the honey we collect down here is going to become solid in a few weeks, whether drums or buckets.
So you are ripping off your customers who will buy a jar of liquid honey, only to have it set like a rock once they get it home?
I’m ripping off no one. If you are as knowledgeable as you claim to be, you would understand what causes crystallization in different nectar sources, yeasts, sucrose, glucose, temperatures, etc. The only way to have tallow honey NOT eventually crystallize would be to pasteurize it, which now renders it not raw. And my customers understand that. You obviously do not.
@@MikeBarryBees Lol it was an in house beekeeping gag, The moment I see a haze in the honey I cream it, before it gets the chance to crystalize. I have a fridge like yours but larger and I use it to liquefy honey before adding it to my creamer. I have a lot of canola, hawthorn and ivy honey that sets like a brick in the barrels and buckets, and creaming is the only solution. I add 10% of my previous batches of creamed honey to the creamer just to kick off the crystal seeding. Keep smiling bud and hurry up and take it easy.
@@sentimentalbloke7586 well then, I most humbly apologize for jumping to conclusions and taking your comment out of context. I understand your point. Thanks for clearing that up and again, apologies extended.
I found that pasteurizing and vacuum sealed jars keeps it from crystalizing vacuum sealed the same as canning
Yes indeed, pasteurization will prevent crystallization, but I sell my honey raw. The pasteurization deems it no longer raw. Do I end up dealing with crystals. Not a huge problem, just a mere annoyance.
@@MikeBarryBees I real don't think that pasteurization take away any thing of being a raw honey, all it does is kill bacteria, and honey really doesn't have any bacteria when these commercial bee guy push the gain, to supply the markets like giant food lion Walmart they push sugar and syrup yrs long , then it is filtered 20 times, in my opinion that is where they lose in the taste and pure honey just simple pasteurization I don't think it takes much away of the raw honey foundation
@@andrewklahold2880 actually, pasteurization does render it no longer raw. If it’s pasteurized, it’s not raw. I see what you’re saying, but taking it up to temperature like that kills enzymes as well. It will still be honey without the pressure filtration process, but it’s no longer raw.