Zoom talk: Tuesday, 11 February at 7:30 pm
A lot of oilseed rape (OSR) is planted in Aberdeenshire. This can be a blessing and a curse but either way OSR cannot be ignored; if it’s anywhere even vaguely near your apiary, the bees will forage on it as they like it so much. In the right weather and with appropriate handling it can produce copious quantities of honey. But it granulates very quickly and becomes spoon-bendingly hard: jarring directly from the extractor is not good practice. Appropriate processing is not difficult nor requires expensive equipment and leads to a soft-set honey. The father and son Basterfield team, two of the UK’s best known beekeeping educators, have been bottling and selling honey since the 1970’s and draw upon this experience to give a clear and logical description of each part of the processes of producing high-quality soft-set and seeded honey (a coarsesetting honey that has had its texture changed by adding an amount of fine-setting honey) for sale.This talk should be of general interest but especially valuable for beginners who might be encountering OSR for the first time in 2025 and improvers who have had difficulties with OSR honey in the past.
This is a members-only event. See the February 2025 Newsletter for the Zoom link.
If you’re not a member, and wish to join the ADBKA, join us here: Membership page.
