Just a heads up for everyone wondering about moisture levels in honey.
I am in the middle of the big push in extracting and I am starting to go through a lot of honey supers, some of which have lots of nectar but very little capped honey. A lot of this has been sitting in my honey house for a few weeks now, which I kept heated to 80 F during the evenings when it cools off. During the day when I am extracting and the sun is out the temps regularly climb into the 90's F.
I field a few calls around now from new keeps wondering why the bees won't cap the honey they wish to harvest, and I explain that bees are very energy efficient, they won't waste the time and energy required to do it if they know they will be using it soon. The shake test is a pretty decent indicator.
I have been getting readings mostly in the 17.4 to 17.6% range but yesterday I hit a batch of mostly capped honey and I managed to snag this reading.
