Extractors and honey processing

[Lesli]

Hey All,
This coming season I'm going to need (I hoper!) and extractor and other honey processing equipment. I plan to have a minimum of 5 hives. So I'm trying to plan my "honey house" set up.

How do you all go about extracting, filtering, and bottling? What equipment do you have, and what do you recommend? My club doesn't have a club extractor, so I'll need to have my own.

[BigRog]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=46527&item=3863199920&rd=1




Here's one Hope you get to it in time

[beesharp]

I have a 9-frame radial extractor and it's more than we need, but my wife and I can extract 10-15 supers in about 3 hours including setup and clean-up. We like the filtering from the extractor into 5-Gallon buckets, then bottling from a honey gate in one of the buckets.

You'll also need some type of contanier to uncap frames. The big red plastic tub I have has a queen excluder screen in the bottom to let the honey drain from the cappings and then a honey gate to drain. This part of my system is poor at best as the grate isn't far enough off the bottom to be effective and doesn't fit the container quite right. You get a lot of honey from the cappings, but you need to mash it some to get it to drain. If the screen doesn't fit right you'll get a lot of wax in the honey.

A serrated bread knife works well for uncapping.

http://www.sunshinehoney.com/honey/pages/extract.html

Jim

[Horns Pure Honey]

They have a good and easy set up in the Bee keeping for Dummies book. It is a dubble container capping box with a gate to get the honey out from the cappings, then the centrafuge with a gate into a five gallon strain bucket with a gate, lift it up and pour it into a boddling bucket and that is how they had it. He says he has used that method for like over 20 years but lifting a 5 gallon bucket of honey would average 55 pounds so I wouldnt fill the 5 gallon strain bucket full befor dumping it in to the boddling bucket. He had the short equipment set up on up side down garbage cans. bye

[Lesli]

I missed that extractor, but I'll keep checking eBay. I'm thinking of getting an electric one, to save time (and the tendonitis I already have in my shoulder!).

[Horns Pure Honey]

That is nice but that drives up the price. How many frames do you want to be able to empty at a time? bye

[leominsterbeeman]

You will also need an uncapping area.    I do all my extracting at a friend's house.

He has the following;

Electric Uncapping knife
Large Tray to collect cappings (10% of your honey will be in the cappings)

After the frames are uncapped

We spin them in the extractor and let the honey pour out through nylon paint straining bag into 5 gal buckets.

We put all the cappings in a nylon bag and put the bag in a 5 gal bucket.


After the honey is in the 5 gal bucket there is still a lot of air and wax in it.  You can leave it RAW.   I then heat mine very slowly to get the air and wax and small stuff to float to the top, where I use a food scraper to scrape it off and then I strain it once again while pouring it into the bottling bucket. This is a 5 gal bucket with a honey gate installed at the base.

To heat the honey slowly,  I use a heating pad and one of those silver heat retentions blankets for camping....

I put the 5 gal bucket on the heating pad, wrap it in heat retention blanket and then wrap other blankets over that.    It slowly heats the honey and doen't even come close to boiling it.

[Finman]

A serrated bread knife works well for uncapping.

Jim

I have had electric knife from USA 35 years, and it is still working. It has thermostat and it is necessary. Temperature must be right.

Old combs are difficult to uncapp because that pupa silk does not melt. Then I tear capping in pieces with fork.

[Finman]

I use a heating pad and one of those silver heat retentions blankets for camping....

WELL! That was valuable idea! Thanks beeman!

My extracting  room is often so cold  (18C) that it leaves  tens of kilos per summer honey into wax.

[Lesli]

Now that I have an extractor and uncapping knife, I'm revisiting this thread. I still need and ncapping tub, strainers and bottling buckets, but thos are simple purchases compared to the big extractor purchase!


The whole uncapping tub... We're talking about a chunk of plastic with a gate, and I see them going for nearly $100.  Holy Honey, Batman! I'm probably handy enough to make my own, but impatient enough to buy one!

[Anonymous]

Geez, oh pete, I use an alum. double sink a home made screen to stop the caps from getting in the new plastic drains installed with out the p trap and fasting a bit of used nylon on the end of the pipe where it drains into a five gallon pail. Find the pails cheap at donut shops. Their food grade and if they charge you it isn't but $2.00 normally.
  Al

[Jay]

Lesli,
TT brings up a very good point here. If you do end up building it, make sure whatever materials you use, they are food grade. Stainless steel, food grade plastic,  etc. as long as it meets human consumption criteria.

TT, I really like the idea of the double sink! Put a strainer in the sink hole and , voila, instant uncapping tank!! Cudos.

[Anonymous]

I forgot to add that I have a frame made like a queen excruder using 1/8 hardware cloth on the up side that holds the cappings from the strainer. It sits down in the sinks tapered sides about 4 inches.
   Al

[amymcg]

I just bought an extractor from another guy online. It was 2 years old and comes with a built in strainer into a bottling tank at the bottom.

I plan on making my own uncapping tank also.  Aluminum sink, now that's a good idea.

[asleitch]

You'll also need some type of contanier to uncap frames. The big red plastic tub I have has a queen excluder screen in the bottom to let the honey drain from the cappings and then a honey gate to drain. This part of my system is poor at best as the grate isn't far enough off the bottom to be effective and doesn't fit the container quite right. You get a lot of honey from the cappings, but you need to mash it some to get it to drain.
Jim

Interestingly, my local beefarmers simply bottle the cappings along with the honey within it - and sell it as "wax cappings". They sel it for almost the same price as a jar of honey. They can't believe how well it sells - people travel especially to buy it. I guess its like cut comb but easier - as it's in a jar.

Why process it when you can sell it "as-is"?

Adam