Crush and Strain Honey Cloudy

[blueblood]

Anyone notice that crush and strain honey is cloudy?  The photo shows extractor honey versus crush and strain.  It has rested for four days now and still not clear.  It is 17.5 humidity.  Is it because of residue from comb, pollen?  I am sure that I didn't leave any capped drones or worker brood.  It was honey from a top bar I dismantled.  I gave the bees to one of my brothers to start a Lang hive.

[apisbees]

Air bubbles during the straining and while crushing and siring mostly I would think.
Crush and strain 4 days ago did you leave the honey in a larger tank for the 4 days then fill the jar or fill the jar right away?
The extracted honey, what is the story on it how was it prepared? extracted sat in a bottling tank for how long, How long ago was the extracted honey bottled.
The temperature of the honey during the process will also effect the honey appearance. small crystals starting to form in the honey will give you the cloudy look.
Place in dbl boiler of hot water and it should clear back up. if you find a froth on top it was air bobbles no froth and it clears it is crystals. Let us know what you find out.

[pistolpete]

yes. looks like air bubbles to me.  I've had that before and the really fine ones can take months to rise to the top unless you heat it.  For personal use it's not an issue.

[Bakersdozen]

I bet it still tastes great.  If you have plans to sell it, you might call it unfiltered or lightly filtered. 
I wondered how that top bar hive was working for you. 

[riverbee]

dave, imho, you will be hard pressed to get it clear if the honey has only been strained, and not filtered.

like baker's said, it's honey and it still tastes great and i wouldn't think twice to sell it.

[efmesch]

If you know that there were cells filled with pollen in the crushed combs, I would bet on the pollen being the cause of the cloudiness.  Wax rises rapidly so that is highly unlikely to be the cause.  Bubbles (foaminess) are more distinctly spotted and not mixed in with the honey so evenly, whereas pollen rises much more slowly and its microscopically size particle could be assumed to give thae cloudiness your picture shows.
Just my guess--I wouldnd't put money on it.  If you have access to a microscope, it shouldn't be too difficult to put a drop of the honey on a glass slide and check it out visually.

[blueblood]

Thanks all.  Yes, it does taste sweet and delicious! I put it all through a stacked 400 and 200 micron filter with cheese cloth and it still came out cloudy. I bet it is indeed pollen that is so microscopic, it laughs at all the strainers and filtering is the answer.  However, it's not worth filtering it to me.  It's tasty and really medicinal in the way of introducing pollen in the system.  Interestingly, it's clear in a spoon but cloudy in mass.

[riverbee]

dave, one more thought, when you strained it, did you let it settle for about  24 hours before pouring? when you let it settle, air bubbles, foam, junk settles to the top, scoop that out with a spoon, may help next time around to be a little more clear. 

[efmesch]

Found on Google:
Pollen grains of pines, firs, and spruces are winged. The smallest pollen grain, that of the forget-me-not (Myosotis spp.), is around 6 µm (0.006 mm) in diameter. Wind-borne pollen grains can be as large as about 90–100 µm.

If I understood that correctly, it means that your filters would  not be able to remove grains of pollen from honey.
Then again, I could have misunderstood the sizes of the spaces in your filters.  Anyone around who can help us on this?

[apisbees]

Pollen varys in size from 5 to 500 microns depending on the pollen.
here is the link to a pdf explaining microns
https://www.parker.com/literature/Racor/Mobile_The_Micron_Rating.pdf

[efmesch]

Thank you Apis for a nice reference.

[LazyBkpr]

Good answers.. I do NOT filter my honey. I sell my honey as "Screened and Settled"   ....
     It goes through #8 screen, then window screen, and into the bottling buckets. It sits at least over night before bottling, and I stop bottling before the particles that have risen to the top reach the spout. Honey is probably not "fair quality" but it LOOKS nice and clear, and gets rave reviews...   Plus, since it was not "filtered" it sells amazingly fast.
   Crush and strain will have a lot more small particles in it, so it will take longer to settle out. As stated several times, not an issue for personal use, and it may even be a bonus to the "natural" crowd that want the pollen etc left in.

[apisbees]

Even honey strained through a jelly straining bag, or nylon socking, will not be strained enough to remove the pollen. When you get to filtering for pollen removal the honey is heated to 140+ deg. and the honey has to be pumped with presser to get the honey to flow through the filter. Any filtering that uses gravity for the honey to pass through will not be removing the pollen. but it will remove the bits of wax and the dark flecks out of the honey.

[Curtchann]

I just crushed and strained about 6 pint jars from a tree cut-out this morning. I crushed and strained through a 400 micron bag. Lots of particles, should have looked up this article before I bottled.

[efmesch]

Let the honey sit for a few days before you bottle it.  The stray particles that shouldn't be there will rise to the top and you can scrape or spoon them off.  Whatever remains behind "belongs" there.  If you've already bottled the honey into smaller botles, wait a ffew days (no rush) and spoon off the top bubbles, wax, etc. before putting them away till  use.   Worse comes to worse, you can always scrape off the "messy top layer" whenever you get to it.
That's one of the nice things about honey,  it's self-cleaning.

[apisbees]

What efmesch said. You can get a lot of stuff in the honey from cutouts. It is not bad from a tree mainly wood materials but from a building. Insulation shingle gravel sawdust wood chips, the list is endless. Strain accordingly to what is needed to be removed. and let the honey settle before bottling heavy objects like sand will sink to the bottom, light to the top like bees wax and wood pieces.