I have only used a 3 frame extractor to harvest honey. But I have some frames from a hive that did not survive that has partial honey frames - want to try the crush method, but I need step by step instructions - Can someone help?
Thanks,
Peggy
Try Linda's video on crush and stain....
http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2007/06/honey-harvest-crush-and-strain.html (http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2007/06/honey-harvest-crush-and-strain.html)
Watch and learn
Neat video. Never saw that before.
Crush & Strain method: You crush it, then you strain it. Those are the step by step instructions. :-D
Sean Kelly
Quote from: Sean Kelly on February 18, 2008, 02:06:20 PM
Neat video. Never saw that before.
Crush & Strain method: You crush it, then you strain it. Those are the step by step instructions. :-D
Sean Kelly
You forgot the worst part................cleaning up. :evil:
My system for straining cappings works great for crush/strain as well. It is similar to MB's in http://bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm where he describes the c/s method.
2 free buckets (mine are 4 gallons) from the bakery, with lids. Cut the middle out of each lid, leaving enough rim so that one bucket can set on top of the other bucket with the lid(rim) in place. Drill holes in the bottom of the top bucket. Put a 5-gallon paint strainer in the top bucket and snap the lid (rim ) on over the strainer to hold it in place.
Now the crushed comb goes into the paint strainer, through into the top bucket, through the holes in the bucket into the bottom bucket. I get get 7-8 supers worth of cappings in there (barely).
Clean-up: remove honey and wax that you want to keep. Release 3 medium sized dogs into the area. After removing them, mist everything well with pine-sol. I don't have any dogs, so have to substitute 3 medium sized kids :-D
Rick
IMHO, cleaning up after crush and strain is SO much simpler than after using an extractor. All there is to clean is the bucket, the strainer, the pestle, and the rubber spatula and a couple of pans.
An extractor doesn't fit in the sink or the dishwasher, AND has many moving parts. In addition to the huge extractor, you also have the bucket, the strainer, the rubber spatula, etc.
I put cardboard boxes flattened out under everything and put the cardboard with the drips on it out on the sidewalk for the bees to take the honey back.
Easy as pie - no, pie is harder, actually.
Linda T in Atlanta
Quote from: tillie on February 18, 2008, 05:57:14 PM
IMHO, cleaning up after crush and strain is SO much simpler than after using an extractor.
I guess it depends on the quantity you are extracting. I can't imagine doing any more than a super at a time if your going to crush it. Seems very time consuming and a waste of the bees resources building comb.
Cleaning an extractor is as simple as setting it outside after it drains and letting the bees do the rest. Or just using a garden hose. And I don't have to worry about getting on the wife's ----list for sticky door knobs and floors.
Quote from: Robo on February 18, 2008, 06:05:02 PM
Quote from: tillie on February 18, 2008, 05:57:14 PM
IMHO, cleaning up after crush and strain is SO much simpler than after using an extractor.
I guess it depends on the quantity you are extracting. I can't imagine doing any more than a super at a time if your going to crush it. Seems very time consuming and a waste of the bees resources building comb.
This is so true, if you're doing any kind of quantity. I would not want to crush and strain three hives' worth, that's for sure.
QuoteCleaning an extractor is as simple as setting it outside after it drains and letting the bees do the rest. Or just using a garden hose. And I don't have to worry about getting on the wife's ----list for sticky door knobs and floors.
It isn't any problem at all to clean our extractor, we use a five gallon bucket of hot water once or twice and then just hose water - no problem.
If you've only got one or two hives then crush and strain, but if you've got more than that, I wouldn't be without a good extractor. We have a big one, hubby is planning on lots of honey! :lol:
Detailed instructions on crush and strain.
You crush it then...
You strain it.
How did you not see that coming?
I don't do all of my harvesting at once - that probably also makes a difference. I might take one or two supers off and then harvest the honey. The next weekend, I might do two or three more. Since I'm a small timer - only had three hives last summer - it's no big deal.
But Michael Bush used crush and strain for years and years with lots of hives and he liked it as much as I do.
(Side Note: I am convinced from lots of honey tasting now from lots of beekeepers that my crush and strain tastes much better than the extracted version. I think because there's not the slinging around in the air factor and no heat is used in C and S like one uses with an uncapping knife).
Linda T quite biased in Atlanta
Quote from: tillie on February 18, 2008, 11:41:11 PM
Linda T quite biased in Atlanta
Aren't all beekeepers :-D
If everyone liked chocolate they wouldn't make vanilla ;)
When I was at the Folk School, we had to clean the extractor by taking it apart and washing it in the deepest sink we could find with soapy water. Sticky, messy, altogether difficult job - especially when we had to put the thing back together - nearly impossible. I don't see how in the world an extractor could be called clean washed out by a garden hose????? If you were selling honey, I'm sure that wouldn't fly with the Dept. of Agriculture.
Linda T still biased in Atlanta
Mine is two pieces, a drum and a basket. Two bolts and the entire basket comes out. After letting it drain for a couple of days, it is barely sticky. Cleans up in a matter of minutes. BTW, I pre-clean it before use with soap and water.
Not trying to be critical, but since you bought it up, I'd be more concerned with the sanitary issues with crush and strain. Much more human handling and spatulas and equipment being used, set down and then reused. IMO more chance of contamination.
I have a huge pot I wash out. I place a clean 5 gal. paint strainer in. I have a clean screen basket that has handles so it sits on the top. I use a clean spatula to scrape the comb out of the frames and crush it in the screen basket. When the screen basket is full I then place the pot's lid over the whole thing and seal it off with seran wrap. (How do you spell that?) I never sit the spatula down until then. My wife helps cause the arms get tired. And we do wash our hands several times during the process.
Then after a day or two. I remove the screen basket. Raise the paint strainer up so it is not sitting in the big pool of honey. Seal it up again. A day or two later I remove the paint strainer and dump the contents into a pan that I have already dumped the crushed wax from the screen basket and sit it out for the bees to enjoy. (If there is a flow they don't mess with it so I save it for later.)
The stuff in the pot is now dumped into GLASS jars. I hate plastic. Everything is cleaned up and ready to go again.
Hee, haw!!! What thread and I am lovin' it. Linda's blog is going to be a piece of work for all to learn from, she has wonderful stuff and is an experimenter. Her site is going to be as well used as Michael Bush's site. Yeah!!!! I love to look at both sites and listen and learn, wonderful, wonderful.
Now something to think about. I know that many people when they are cleaning equipment, be it pans, pots, extractors, or whatever wash them with water. What I do when I clean stuff up and it may take a little bit of time, is that I use very warm water, a small amount and work the equipment so that the water left over is laden with honey, propolis, wax, all the beautiful products that the bees have made and make a slurry. This water that has been used for cleaning is not wasted. I keep it, I freeze it, and when I make pollen patties or make sugar syrup, I utilize this stored water as the water. It is full of STUFF for the bees and I think it really makes the bees LOVE the sugar syrup even more than they already do.
This may be time consuming, and probably not for everyone, but if you have the time, the freezer room, the guts and gumption, then go for this. You can do all manner of revision of what I do, (go as far as even straining this cleaning water to remove debris), but why waste water? And, if you have added honey residue to the water, even better for the bees.
I must put in a huge note here. I only suggest using this honey water for feeding back to the bees if you know for sure that none of your colony has any brood diseases, such as AFB (American Foulbrood) or EFB (European Foulbrood), or any others for that matter. It must be healthy honey water, not something that may introduce disease to any colony
Just some thoughts and ponderings from one who does a lot of thoughts and ponderings, (and ramblin's too, hee, hee). Have the most beautiful and wonderful day, groovin' on life, my new word for the day. Cindi
Jerry, beauty, sounds like a great plan, yep, yep. The spelling is "saran", not that spelling minds one little bit here, no one cares, but just for your own personal happiness, hee, hee, that is the correct spelling. YOu are talking to a girl that always headed the class in the spelling bees, I am a walking dictionary......have a wonderful and beautiful day, groovin' on life. Cindi
Quote from: Cindi on February 19, 2008, 10:32:58 AM
Now something to think about. I know that many people when they are cleaning equipment, be it pans, pots, extractors, or whatever wash them with water. What I do when I clean stuff up and it may take a little bit of time, is that I use very warm water, a small amount and work the equipment so that the water left over is laden with honey, propolis, wax, all the beautiful products that the bees have made and make a slurry. This water that has been used for cleaning is not wasted. I keep it, I freeze it, and when I make pollen patties or make sugar syrup, I utilize this stored water as the water. It is full of STUFF for the bees and I think it really makes the bees LOVE the sugar syrup even more than they already do.
What? You don't use it as the base for refrigerator stew? Would probably rank right up there with hot dog water soup. :-P
Quote from: Jerrymac on February 19, 2008, 10:31:20 AM
And we do wash our hands several times during the process.
While maintaining a firm grip on the spatula that you never set down. That's a pretty good feat :-P
Just kidding Jerry..... have a good day.
Rob, thank goodness I had finished my gulp of tea when you posted that, naughty, naughty. I'm thinkin' some hot dog soup might be mighty tasteeeeeee, yum, yum.
Yep, made some pollen patties Sunday morning with this stuff, what a beautiful fragrance that water had to it as I mixed it in the pollen. The fragrance of pollen, honey, wax, and the brewer's yeast, wow.......
Yesterday I went to a building supply place in a neighbouring town, about 20 minutes away. They are farther eastward, closer to the country, they sell livestock feed also.
I was on a search for more brewers yeast. I had called to several cooperatives and feed stores. It would appear a 20 kg bag of brewers yeast (they use it for protein for livestock feed too) ranged anywhere from $80 to $125. Too much money and I was getting annoyed, I know it is not that expensive, someone is racking up their prices.
This place that I went to had told me that they had ordered Calf Manna (is that the spellling, hee, hee) and Brewers Yeast had come instead and now they had a 20 kg bag they don't know what to do with. I asked her how much. She said, well, how much do you want to pay, I said nothing. She laughed, I laughed. She asked what the going price was and I told her the cheapest price was $80. She laughed. She told me that was a pile of crap. Brewers yeast is really, really, really, cheap. She said to come and get the bag and pay the $30 dollars that she was going to charge me. And that I did.
Something is not right with this picture and I am going to get to the bottom of this. A range from $30 to $125 is not acceptable, not one little bit. The price variation has knocked my socks off. I am going to get in touch with a brewery and find out what they charge for this dead yeast, it is only good for livestock and whatever humans do with it for consumption. They sell it at the local health food store, in small 500 gram packages for $5.00, so I am wondering too this.....what do humans do with brewers yeast in their bodies? Anyone know.........oh man oh man alive, why do I have such a habit of wandering off topic and a'ramblin', can't figure that and probably never will. Have a beautiful, great day, groove on the groove. Cindi
OH yeah. I did leave out I usually let the bees clean every thing of honey before I wash it. Got to get every drop you know. ;)
Quote from: Robo on February 19, 2008, 10:41:58 AM
Quote from: Jerrymac on February 19, 2008, 10:31:20 AM
And we do wash our hands several times during the process.
While maintaining a firm grip on the spatula that you never set down. That's a pretty good feat :-P
Just kidding Jerry..... have a good day.
Notice the "we" and "a" spatula. Never gets put down just handed over.
Quote from: Cindi on February 19, 2008, 10:51:30 AM
They sell it at the local health food store, in small 500 gram packages for $5.00, so I am wondering too this.....what do humans do with brewers yeast in their bodies?
I know what I do with it....... everytime I swill the last drops of beer from the bottle!!! lololol
Cindi, you make your own wine right? When you rack to a secondary fermentor, isnt there dead yeast at the bottom? Couldnt you dry that and use it? Hmm... Curious....
Sean Kelly
Sean, oh brother, you are making me think, that is not a good thing, hee, hee. So, that sludgy stuff in the bottom after racking is dead yeast? I don't get that. The yeast that I spread on top is only about a teaspoon or so (whatever amount is in the packet), how could it get to be like 4 cups or so. Anyways, that yeast is permeated with the colour of the wine, dark red, I don't think that I would want to use it for making pollen patties, it would look pretty ugly.
I have a 20 kg pound bag (think that is about 50 pounds, it is pretty heavy) of brewers yeast, $30. That will last me for years and years, I am set, now to figure out how to freeze the big bag. Think I will have to put it into the largest ziploc bag that I can find, I know that Glad now makes an extra large one. I really like Glad products, they are strong. I have tried to use some cheaper no name bags for freezing and nope, not going there again, the quality and food preservation is just not there. Have a wonderful and best of this day, lovin' life. Cindi
Cindi,
Yeah, it's dead yeast and other sediments. Amazing how fast yeast grows and dies in the brewing process, how a couple teaspoons turns into several cups! Thats what you're seeing during the primary fermentation when the airlock is boiling away and it looks like the must is churning. It's the yeast consuming sugar, pooping out Co2 and alcohol, and making tons of babies. We kinda forget that yeast is actually a live animal and not just another ingredient.
Who cares what color it is. I'm sure the bees wont. :-) I'm sure the brewers yeast your getting is leftovers from beer, not wine which is why there's the color difference.
Sean Kelly
>But Michael Bush used crush and strain for years and years with lots of hives and he liked it as much as I do.
Yes, but now that Michael is used to that nifty motorized extractor, I wonder how enthused he would be about stepping back to the crush and strain method. Huh? :-D
I used to crush and strain. I got tired of waiting for days for all the honey to drain. I'll never go back.
Quote from: Troutsqueezer on February 21, 2008, 06:38:26 PM
I used to crush and strain. I got tired of waiting for days for all the honey to drain. I'll never go back.
Crush-n-strain does not necessarily require waiting for draining.
Method:
1. Pull boxes
2. Cut comb from bars/frames
3. Break comb into less large chunks.
4. Place comb chunks into fabric bag (nylon stockings are good for this)
5. Place bag of comb chunks into press
6. Compress bag of combs and watch the honey flow!
7. Proceed to clarifying, bottling and wax-rendering stagesA press can be constructed from a frame of wood or iron and an old jack (like that used to lift cars) with some boards serving as the press faces, as here http://www2.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/press.htm (http://www2.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/press.htm)
There are variety of commercially available press-types, also. Look for fruit presses.
>Yes, but now that Michael is used to that nifty motorized extractor, I wonder how enthused he would be about stepping back to the crush and strain method. Huh?
If my extractor died, I'm not sure what I'd do. I might live without it and just try to build a bigger market for cut comb, but probably I'd fix it. I'm glad I held out until I could afford a real extractor (9/18 motorized) instead of scraping by on a 2 frame non-reversible. The biggest advantage is having drawn comb. The biggest disadvantage (besides the cost) is trying to guard that drawn comb from the moths.
When it comes to crush and strain I'm using my cider press. Paid over $800.00 (includes shipping) for it so I need to get my money out of it. It was a factor when I decided to buy it. It has to baskets so I can fill 1 while pressing the honey out of the other.
Brian, can't wait, pressed apples....yummmmeee...forgot, what varieties are on your property? Juicy ones I'm hopin', hee, hee.
I bet with pressing the honey you get totally most of the honey out, not much left in the cappings eh? What a great and wonderful idea you got goin' there....have a beautiful day, beautiful life, beautiful groovin' on beautiful stuff. Cindi
Quote from: Cindi on February 23, 2008, 11:16:33 AM
Brian, can't wait, pressed apples....yummmmeee...forgot, what varieties are on your property? Juicy ones I'm hopin', hee, hee.
I bet with pressing the honey you get totally most of the honey out, not much left in the cappings eh? What a great and wonderful idea you got goin' there....have a beautiful day, beautiful life, beautiful groovin' on beautiful stuff. Cindi
Red Delicious and Gravenstien for sure plus 3 other old depression era homestead type.
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on February 23, 2008, 08:51:09 PM
Red Delicious and Gravenstien for sure plus 3 other old depression era homestead type.
Nice....I bet the old depression era homestead apples are wonderful, something about the "heirloom", that is what I would call those apple trees, beautiful. Have a wonderful and awesome, great day, lovin' and live our lives. Cindi