What happened to my honey???

The image above shows liquid honey on the left from our August honey pull and the one in the middle shows our July honey pull both have been kept in our house at room temperature. The one of the right is from the July pull but has been kept in the garage for tastings and has dealt with heat waves to cold evening temperature changes. But all are still soft to scoop out!

Why is my honey getting harder or turning into crystals? Why has my honey changed colour?

This is natural process called crystallization. When honey crystallizes, that means it is pure honey that has not been heated or changed in any way and that nothing has been added into the honey. It tells you that you are eating 100% pure, raw, unpasteurized honey. This is the best kind of honey to eat as it has lots of health benefits!

Honey crystallizes because it is made up of a mix of the sugars called fructose and glucose. It has more than 70% of sugars and less than 20% water. This means that there isn’t enough water in honey to naturally dissolve the sugars and keep it in a liquid state. The glucose naturally separates from the water and then turns into small crystals. The fructose does not crystallize and instead remains liquid around the glucose crystals. Crystallization is natural and means you have honey right out of a bee hive!

At Big Hill Homestead we find that when our honey crystallizes faster as it is unfiltered. This means that particles of beeswax, propolis and pollen are in our honey. These particles also increase the speed of crystallization but are the reason for much of the health benefits as well.  Our honey tends to make quite small crystals but is still spreadable, however, this is only if you take care of your honey.

How to take care of your honey:

• Store your honey at room temperature.
• Only put clean and dry utensils into the honey container. For example, if water or crumbs get into your honey it will speed up the crystallization process.

How to get crystallized honey back to a liquid state:

1. Heat a pot of water on low heat.
2. Remove the pot from the stove, take the lid off the honey and place your honey container inside the water.
3. Let the honey melt back into its liquid state. Cool your honey slowly just as you heated it slowly. Put the honey back in the warm water and let the water and honey cool together. When they are both at room temperature, it is ready!
4. Caution: You may be tempted to heat your honey faster but if your honey gets to high temperature (over 47ºC) you can remove the vitamins, and nutrients found in natural honey.

For more information, check out:
https://honeypedia.info/why-does-honey-crystallize
https://ashevillebeecharmer.com/honey-tips/keep-raw-honey-from-crystallizing/
https://www.whitelakefarms.com/how-to-save-crystallized-honey.htm