oy! is it humid!

dehumidifier and heat?

John K Jordan

Do you have a dehumidifier?

When I am processing honey from the beehives and the moisture is a little bit high I run a dehumidifier in the room where the honey is stored in 5-gal buckets with screens on the top. I know how well the dehumidifier is working by how often I have to empty the water it collects! Honey needs to meet certain moisture content specifications for quality, checked by a refractometer.

I also turn the AC down to increase the heat in the room to about 80 deg. This is in the middle of the summer in Tennessee where the humidity probably should be in the Guinness Book of Records.

In short order the humidity in the room is reduced to 40%. With the warm, dry air the moisture content of the honey is reduced quickly to acceptable levels. I check the humidity with an electronic meter.

Perhaps this would work for your finish.

JKJ

bees? *LINK*

darrin hill

odd.. i got 15 hives.. half of which are africanized...

watch video #1..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ1uWfWRFMc

u use a hydrometer to test your honey?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ1uWfWRFMc

Re: bees?

John K Jordan

Yikes, we have no africanized bees in our area, as far as I know. I was to,d they can't survive out climate. I don't think I would enjoy working with those hives.

I use a refractometer calibrated specifically for moisture in honey. Only one drop is needed for an accurate reading.

I take very little uncapped comb so my honey is usually less than 18% moisture. If not, I dry it to 17-17.5%

I haven't watched the videos yet but I will try to tomorrow evening.

JKJ

better bee vid *LINK*

darrin hill

this is the 2nd part of the vid... earlier i put the wrong link..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mF9_4z-3ZU

Re: oy! is it humid!

lee tourtelotte

If you have had good success with Formby's Tung Oil in the past, you can disregard the following comment. I recall that there is a disclaimer, in very fine print, located on the Formby's Tung Oil can, that says, "tung oil like contents". So, it may not be pure tung oil after all and therefore may be more susceptible to longer drying problems in higher humidity. A few members in our MN club use MinWax Tung Oil, which has no similar disclaimer, and we all have experienced excellent results, with normal drying times, in high humidity instances, as well. Might be something you want to check out further, irregardless of the high humidity.

Re: oy! is it humid!

Barry L Elder

Lee, Darrin said he is using Formby's tung oil FINISH, although Formby's will admit it contains no tung oil, although on the production line there may be a can of pure Tung Oil that the Formby's Tung Oil Finish goes by before being labeled! I finished up using some modified Tung Oil from Lee Valley and was pleased with their honesty!

Re: better bee vid

Rum

Nope Nope Nope!! I will not move where you are!

I used to go down and steal honey from the hives in a t shirt and shorts barefoot all the time as a kid. It was just fine, the bees buzzed around some and would sometimes land on me to take a look. I think I got stung once and that was completely my fault because I trapped one under my shirt. Basically they were tiny honey creating teddy bears.

Our bees were nothing like yours! The bees I see around here are nothing like yours!

What you have there is more like the yellow jackets or ground hornets around here except maybe worse as even those usually don't bother you unless you actually disturb them (walking over their nest disturbs them). And I can mostly still outrun the yellow jackets and hornets only getting hit once or twice.. usually.

I don't think I'd raise bees if that was my option, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be brave enough to have them next to the house like you do (not to mention that if the bees didn't kill me loml would the first time she got stung).

No, I think you can keep those bees down there way far away from the rest of us.

Re: better bee vid

John K Jordan

This map shows reported spread of Africanized bees, as of 2011

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=11059&page=6

Re: oy! is it humid!

Keith Newton

Besides just bringing it into the house, when the outside temp is moderate, the inside may not be getting much conditioning.

Warm air is more absorbent than cool air, so you can speed it up by maybe putting it in a bathroom with the heater on. Heating any volume of air, also drops the relative humidity of that volume.

For smaller things, which your turnings may be, you can get nice flow of warmer air down in front of your refrigerator. On mine, the warm air exits on the freezer side. Something a bit larger can benefit by being inside a cardboard box laying on it's side with the open side toward the fridge, back about 5" so the air flow goes into the bottom, then is deflected up and around the turning.

For any of you thinking this is a great idea for drying green turning. it will dry too fast, causing checks. About 20 years ago, I wanted to speed up drying some deep hollow forms, by rigging a plenum to catch the air stream, then sending it up a pvc tube with notches cut into the end. I could set the form on top to let the warm air flow down the inside and out the bottom. Instead of checking on the outside, overnight the checks were inside, and almost deep enough to spoil the piece.

You made no mention of wood species. I have tried using tung oil on some rosewood species, which were gummy after a week. I suppose some of the compounds in the wood dissolve and mix into the finish spoiling it.

Re: oy! is it humid!

Darrin hill

Mesquite.. About 12 inches wide.. About nine inches tall..

It's rained for a week almost, off and on..