The books / Forage and the Nectar Flow / chapter 12 of 21
Oilseed rape, the flow that sets in the comb
All chapters
- The two-kilometre circle
- Why six kilometres costs more than it brings
- Three and a half kilos of nectar
- What a flow actually is
- Maple, willow and the first dandelions
- Fruit blossom and hawthorn
- The main flow: black locust and clover
- Linden in July
- The gap in the middle of the year
- Goldenrod and the winter stores flow
- Ivy, the last flow
- Oilseed rape, the flow that sets in the comb
- What makes a jar monofloral
- Putting a super on at the start of a flow
- Pulling it at the end
- Reading a capping percentage
- Eighteen point six percent
- Honey that ferments
- Crystallisation is physics, not spoilage
- Creaming by the Dyce method
- A year of varieties and what each is worth
Oilseed rape is the one flow that beats you if you are not standing there. The honey is very pale, mild and slightly cabbage-like when fresh, and its price is the plain baseline; what makes it different is the speed.
Its fructose-to-glucose ratio is about 1.0, the fastest band there is, and a full set that takes other honeys two to four months can take rape a matter of weeks, or even days. It is often blended, or sold pre-set and creamed, for exactly that reason.
Honey that has set cannot be spun out of a frame. Put the super on when the field goes yellow, and take it off the week the yellow goes.