Sun Ripen Honey

[Acebird]

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This was an experiment that unfortunately I was not available to witness for the duration of the experiment. We had a 60 degree day with a lot of sunshine last week so I put some of my crystalized honey in a pretzel container on the deck for an afternoon while we were gone. I had a candy thermometer in it and it read about 80 degrees when I left.
I am calling this sun ripened honey. As you can see the one pound jar completely liquefied that was facing the sun and the other jars that were behind it and to the side only liquefied where the sun was shining on the honey. I don?t know what to make of this. Does sun rays do something to the honey that heat by itself doesn?t do?
Of course I tasted this honey and I can tell you is did not suffer in the aroma or taste from when this honey was extracted from the comb. There is no doubt it got darker. Did the sun destroy the natural enzymes of the honey? I don?t know because I don?t know how hot it got. Yet the jars right next to this one did not liquefy and they had to be at the same temperature, I would think.
Anyways if you want to liquefy honey that has crystallized all you have to do is give it a day in the sun. I know that works.
BTW I know that most polycarbonate has a UV inhibitor in it so by putting the jars in the pretzel container it was shielded from UV which is one of the reasons I did it that way.

I am now working on a warming box where the temperature would be consistent to see what it takes to liquefy crystallized honey in the jar. The intent is to liquefy it without darkening it.

[Acebird]

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Here is the results of the warming box. These are Styrofoam containers that drug stores use for shipments of antibiotics or some other drug that requires refrigeration. I am sure they are available for the asking because they only end up in a landfill.
I first tried a 40 watt bulb and it was too hot. It charred the wood and started to melt the Styrofoam. The bulbs you see in the photo are LED?s that consume 10 watts so the pair give off 20 watts and as you can see from the candy thermometer it raises the temp to about 105 F, just perfect. The honey was in the box overnight and part of a day about 15hrs. I am doing another batch to see if the time can be shorter.
So basically you can take fully crystallized honey back to the liquid state by either placing it in the sun for a day or making a simple warm box for about the same amount of time.
Unfortunately this box is just a couple of inches too short to fit frames into or it would make a great pre-warmer for extraction. I suppose I could cut two boxes and glue them together to make one long enough for the frames.