Some time later this year I will invest in an extractor... there seem to be a number of model, options, and types. Since it is a large purchase, I would like to gather some "hands on" experience from the group here.
I have three hives now and will probably grow my apiary to have 10 hives or so... just a hobby operation.
:?: What sort of extraction equipment would you recommend?
:?: What features should I be considering?
:?: What do you have that you like - or don't like?
Assuming this is almost a "lifetime purchase" - I appreciate all your thoughts!
Good question as I am considering the same.
HI,
from what I understand a radial extractor is the way to go!
you extract both sides at once, I have an older 10/20 maxant
I bought it used for under $400, found it on someones website.
So do some lookin b4 you buy something new, some poeple sell
there bee stuff for pretty cheap!
I was told and also have read in these forums that a 10/20 is
about right for someone with ten hives, but when your at ten and you've
had a great winter and everyone starts to build swarm cells, you may find your self with more then ten
thats my two cents
Trebor
I think my 9/18 radial is perfect. If it was any larger it would not fit through my back door into my kitchen. A 9 frame radial would not extract deeps, would hold half as much and only cost about $100 less. A two frame tangetial is more work than doing crush and strain.
We bought a used Walter Kelly 33-Frame Radial this spring. It will hold 33 Small/Medium/Large frames at a time!!!
http://go.netgrab.com/secure/kelleystore/asp/product.asp?product=132
It has a ¾ Hp motor to drive it. A friend of ours runs 4 of them at his commercial operation (He is one of the largest commercial bee keeper in Ohio 3200 hives) and he was updating his equipment and sold it to us for $500. We drove 4 ½ hours to pick it up and it did not occur to us till we got there that it would not fit into the house. So we set up an extraction room in the garage.
This weekend it was 100+ degrees in that garage while we extracted. But we did not want to open the doors because the Bee hives are less then 100 yards away....LOL But it worked out great because the honey just flowed for us. This was the first time we used the extractor and it did exactly what we wanted. We extracted 3 honey supers. We have all small honey supers and we wanted to try the extractor to see how it worked. I will say this, When we set everything up, we built a platform by stacking 4X4s alternating the directions they were going till a 5 gal. Bucket with a double screen would fit under it including the decking that was made out of 4X4s as well. This thing is Super Heavy!!!! We raised the back side up about 3†to help drain out the honey gate on the opposite side. We ended up at just better then 7 ½ Gal. of honey. We did NOT have any problem with a bunch of waste in the extractor. I would guess there was less then 1 cup in the bottom corner that we used a spatula on a long stick to get out.
This extractor was just what we wanted. God willing, we will be extracting lots of frames and this thing did not damage any of our combs. We have all plastic foundations in all of our wood frames and it worked out very well. We have 12 hives right now and want to add 13 more next year. I think 25 will be the Max we would want to keep. But then again 12 was the max this year….haha
Tim
>We bought a used Walter Kelly 33-Frame Radial this spring. It will hold 33
If it would fit through my door...
Michael Bush,
It was an inconvenience of taking up space in the garage, but we are starting an addition on the garage that will be 15X30 that will house all of our beekeeping stuff. Of that will be a 15X15 clean room for just extracting and bottling.
Our settling/ bottling tank was made from a food grade 55 gal barrel. We put 400Mc nylon screen in the top of it with a 1¼ honey gate in the bottom. I will be getting an uncapping plan though. With many frames to do this fall, I don’t want to try to do them all with an uncapping hot knife….
I put pictures at:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a42/Dadd-T/
User name: Dadd-T
Pass: lorah74
Tim
I think the kelly 33 is the one I have. I am putting it in the green house since I don't have a shed yet. I don't have it solidly installed yet. so it seemed a bit off balance. but I think that was from not having it solid and not loading it where the weight was distributed evenly as I had an odd nbr of frames. It also threw a lot of wax. but that is probably because I did not put them together good enough because I am definently not skilled at installing foundation yet, and my frames are just junk I think I shall soon invest in some new frames if that doesn't work I will go to pierco plastic already drawn ones
Bill,
We are doing some replacing with one pierco plastic frames, but I was waiting to here from Robo about the drawn comb frames. If everyone says it is working I will go to it. I will be adding 13 more hives next spring, and I will need about 500+ new frames. For that investment They better work.......... :?
Tim
they sound good and I am sure they would hold together better than mine. I also found that in a few of the frames they had not built the foundation out far enough to where the knife took the caps off sliding along the sides of the frames. I just scratched the caps off. I am wondering if that was what caused the wax to throw out. It was very hot in the greenhouse so that might be the cause of that. I think it will do better when I have more frames of honey and have it bolted down to cement pads for it shook a lot.
Bill,
I think the product you are referring to is PermaComb, not Pierco. See: http://www.bee-l.com/bulletinboard/seets/permacomb.htm
Pierco has nice plastic foundations, and one-piece plastic frame and foundation, but, as far as I know they have never had fully drawn plastic comb.
There was another company working on 4.9 cell fully drawn foundations? Is PermaComb the same thing? I don't know enough to know the difference. I went to there web site and it sounds good? Not to bad at 3 bucks each. But do the bees work it? I will put up a post asking. Thanks for the info. I would spend the money for drawn plastic comb, if it will work
Tim
>There was another company working on 4.9 cell fully drawn foundations?
There is a company working on small cell fully drawn foundation. They seem to be having difficulties. I think molding fully drawn comb is pretty tricky and that's why only PermaComb has been doing it. Hopefully they will get the bugs worked out.
> Is PermaComb the same thing?
PermaComb has been on the market, that I know of personally, since the late 1970's. The other product doesn't acutally exist yet.
> I don't know enough to know the difference. I went to there web site and it sounds good?
I haven't been there lately. They used to list the ID as 4.3mm. I think that's too small, but I can't say what the bees think since I haven't had any. An inside diameter of 4.8mm would be about perfect. 4.6mm would probably get by.
>Not to bad at 3 bucks each. But do the bees work it?
None of us will know until it hits the market.
>I will put up a post asking. Thanks for the info. I would spend the money for drawn plastic comb, if it will work
PermaComb works and actually exists. :)