Hi folks. This being my first year with bees I have started thinking about extraction. I won't have honey this year - but I am thinking ahead anyway:
What do most of you do for extraction?
1.) crush and strain?
2.) community extraction through bee club?
3.) equipment rental?
4.) outright equipment purchase?
Very curious!
The first 26 years I did crush and strain and comb honey. The last 15 I have extracted. If I could have borrowed an extractor during my crush and strain days, I would have.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm
Crush and strain first harvest, buying extractor for this yrs. G
Join a local bee club, you might be able to borrow their equipment. I would avoid communal extracting as you never know what others have added to their hives. For this year, I suggest you find a fellow beek and and if you can watch/help. They might even let you borrow their extractor next year if you really help, learn and treat their equipment the way you would your own. Also offer to help with the clean up. All for free, of course. -Mike
during my first winter I built my 6 deep frame radial extractor. made wooden barrel and frame from lexan 1/2 thick from used police vehicle shields. stainless steel altread and stainless nuts. used variable speed sewing machine motor. works great. the things you can force yourself to make when things are to expensive to buy.
john
divemaster1963, your extractor sounds good. I am the kind of person who wants to save a buck too. Several times I have tried to save a dollar by building my own product. Unfortunately, I am not as good at putting things together as you. I usually end up with a product that works almost as well as the real thing. And I usually have spent as much putting it together as I would have spent buying it new. I don't think I'll be building an extractor. I'll save up and buy one. Probably get one from a guy like you who built his own.
I crushed and strained some my first year. I also crush and strain cutouts. Right now I am borrowing an extractor from my mentor. In the future I plan on buying my own extractor. If you only have a couple of hives, you really don't need to own your own extractor in most cases. Borrow one if possible.
For crush and strain you could use a fruit press. For about $150 you could probably do 10 frames at a time pretty quickly. I have thought about doing that but then making a wax grinder to break up the wax so that the bees can easily rob what little honey is left. The other option is to just save it as comb honey.
I did a community/club extraction one year, and borrowed extractors for about a half-dozen years before buying one.
If possible, I'd recommend waiting a few years before buying. While every new beekeeper is enthusiastic, I've seen a lot of beeks throw in the towel after after 5-7 years. Conversely, I've seen some new beekeepers start out with a couple of hives, buy a small extractor, and later wish they had waited and bought a bigger extractor once they hit 15-20 colonies.
I would never buy less than a 9/18 extractor. And unless you have a very wide kitchen door, I would never by more than a 20 frame extractor...
if you think you'll end up with more than 6 or 7 hives i'd say get a 20 frame extractor. i only ran 5 or 6 hives for production last year and got between 25 and 30 gallons. it was still a full day of work pulling, extracting and bottling. if you're not sure where you're going with the hobby use a club extractor. crush and strain is a waste of resources and is costing you a big part of next years crop.
We have a 4 frame electric extractor. We use a hot knife for de-capping. The de-capping is done on a old stainless, 2 hole sink. Five gallon buckets underneath each drain collects the honey draining off the caps.
The honey is strained out of the extractor and then dumped in a 45 gal hopper. The equipment we have was purchased over 20 years ago. Depending on the harvest, we get 40-70 gallons a year. It has been worth having our own equipment to do the extraction.
Jack
Yea I just did a cutout last week of a two year old hive. Ended up with two ten frame deeps of broodwith honey rings .
I still crushed and stained 61 pounds of honey. The flow? this year have been the best in two and half years.
John
My first year, I took the frames to a guy who would extract the honey with his electric 4 frame extractor.for $1 a frame. It allowed me to see that I did not want a small extractor nor a non motorized one. I also decided that I wanted a radial extractor. The following year my wife and family gave me the money for my birthday to buy an 9/18 frame motorized Mann Lake extractor. I am sure glad that I have it. I have done crush and strain on cut outs. It is not for me.
When I extract, I invite my new bees that I am mentoring to bring their honey frames for extracting to help them decide on how they want to do it in the future and to show them the procedures on how to do it.
Jim
When I first started, I was a "bee haver" and the man (beek) with all the equipment had an extractor. A few years later, I found a used "Little Wonder" hand crank for about a hundred bucks ( this was early 80's, mind you). The next year I adapted a variable speed drill to motorize it and went with that for years and years.
Now I have a 30 frame Maxant radial ( in storage) & a ML 20 frame radial ( more my size). I recently sold the old hand crank for ~$200.
I suspect if one needed to buy a low end extractor because of the cost, "trading up", when & if then time comes, won't be much of a problem - lot's of demand these days!
ok http://www.almanac.com/product/14l-harvest-deluxe-fruit-and-wine-press this is $286. I could make my own pretty easily using a much bigger steamer with a 122 quart pot for about $300. A 20 frame extractor from Dadant is $1629.00 without shipping. I don't know if I would be able to pick it up in Waverly without paying any shipping or not. That said, I can sell wax and make money with the wax as well using crush and strain. Yes extracting there is always the capping wax but with the comb there is a lot more wax to sell. My father had an extractor when he kept bees. When I got into bee keeping my mom said "It's going to be expensive to get back into it, we sold all the equipment." Well, yes, they sold the extractor, their friend sold the bottler. But that isn't NEEDED. It would be nice but I really think that taking a knife around the comb in the frame and dropping in in the pot is actually less work than loading the extractor. I say that because there is no capping to cut off, and there is no need for a ladder to climb up to load frames in the extractor. I do think that it would probably help to run the comb through a grinder before dropping in in the press but that is also a pretty cheap and easy process. I always look at a cost benefit analysis. Foundation? Cost but no benefit why use it? Extractor? Significant cost reasonable benefit but I can get close to the same benefit from something much cheaper. If I am going to spend over $1000 I will spend it on wood working equipment.
With crush and strain, what is produced for me to sell from one medium frame? Nearly 4 pounds of honey. Sell at $8.00 per pound. That is $32 worth of honey from one frame.
How much wax will I get? One site says a frame uses 2.6 lbs of wax??? How much will I be able to sell that small amount of wax for? A quick looks says a pound of wax could go for $12. That is $30 from one frame.
So crush and strain could give me about $60 per frame. That is one use per season.
With extraction, what is produced for me to sell from one medium frame? $32 worth of honey for first extraction. $32 worth of honey for second extraction. That is $64.
I also have some beautiful white wax cappings my wife can use to make lip balm.
I suppose you could greatly increase the profitability of crush and strain if you sell the wax in products like lip balm tubes, instead of in bulk.
Over all, I prefer to sling honey and have the comb available for use when I need it. I get more than enough cappings wax for us to make and sell lip balm.
chux, if you factor in the fact that it takes 6-8 pounds of honey to produce one pound of wax the gains for using comb a second time go way up. over a few years it makes a big difference. in a year with poor flows it could really matter. it also doesn't tie up the labor of bees that could be performing other duties.
I really don't buy 6-8 pounds of honey to make a pound of wax. Bees will make wax whether they need it or not. Who says you can't throw the empty frames back in after crush and strain in the same season?
Eric, you are right, the bees will make wax when they need it. In my limited experience though, the only time they Need it is during a good flow. There is a lot of energy during that same good flow used to build wax if that's what you want them to do. I think that if you give them drawn comb, during the same flow, your honey harvest will likely be much heavier. Stimulative feeding for wax building seems a hit and miss to me. Seems more like an established colony, knows the flow is over, and decreases brooding to match it. Therefore leaving more open comb for stores, and less need for wax. I love nice virgin white wax, but I will be extracting this year. Drawn comb is invaluable during times of yard expansion. Once I get to my target, accumulation of extra comb may not seem as important, until then, I need all the comb I can get to give my young queens a place to lay. G
Quote from: chux on July 02, 2015, 04:37:35 PM
How much wax will I get? One site says a frame uses 2.6 lbs of wax??? I doubt one of my empty frames weighs ~8 oz.
I'd double check that. Maybe 2.6 lbs of honey to produce the wax? I'm pretty sure an empty 10 frame box doesn't have 26 lbs of wax in it. Maybe 1/10th of that ??? Those numbers just don't work in my mind.
It doesn't really matter - once you have a small extractor, there's no looking back :smile:
I'm not sure how much honey is sacrificed per pound of wax. I do know that there is a sacrifice, though. The bees burn through nectar that would have gone into honey stores, in the manufacture of comb. This is a fact. And yes, Eric, you certainly can throw that frame back on, after you cut out all the comb. I use foundationless frames. If my girls finish capping a frame in the first week of June, and I harvest with crush and strain, then put the frame back in, what will happen? That frame will get built out about a quarter of the way at most, until the flow slows down. Then it will sit until my second flow in July. They might get that frame finished and capped before the end of the cotton flow.
On the other hand, when I give them the comb back in June, when the July flow hits, they fill that comb, and possibly draw out comb in another super too. I don't see any way of getting around it. It simply makes sense. Cut and strain will cut down on honey harvest. For some, that is acceptable. Some prefer more wax. If that floats your boat, go for it and have fun.
Amen, brother - I have extracting frames that are almost 40 years old. :wink:
Here is a photo of my homemade extractor.
[attachment=0][/attachment]
It's made of wood slats with a sewing machine motor and contrller.
I can only load one photo at a time. Here another.
[attachment=0][/attachment]
It can radially spin six deep frames.
[attachment=0][/attachment]l
divemaster1963, That is too cool. Thanks for showing the extractor. Is the plexiglass disk low enough to hold the frames in place? No metal basket?
The side bar is level with the top lexan there is a slot in the bottom lexan to hold the bottom in.
John
>I'm not sure how much honey is sacrificed per pound of wax. I do know that there is a sacrifice, though.
It costs some honey to not have drawn comb, but that is because of time. I'm pretty sure there is no sacrifice as they make wax whether they use it or not...
"Again, at all times of a heavy yield of honey, the bees secrete wax whether any combs are built or not; and if the sections are all supplied with foundation, and the hive filled with comb, this wax is wasted or else the foundation given is wasted; have it which way you please...To show that I am not alone in this matter regarding the waste of wax, I wish to quote from two or three of our best apiarists; the first is Prof. Cook, and no one will say that he is not good authority. he says on page 166 of the latest edition of his Manual 'But I find upon examination that the bees, even the most aged, while gathering, in the honey season, yield up the wax scales the same as those within the hive. During the active storing of the past season, especially when comb-building was in rapid progress, I found that nearly every bee taken from the flowers contained wax scales of varying size, in the wax pockets.'
"This is my experience during "active storing," and the wax scales are to be found on the bees just the same whether they are furnished with foundation or not; and I can arrive at no other conclusion than that arrived at by Mr. S.J. Youngman, when he says on page 108: 'The bees secrete wax during a honey flow, whether they are building comb or not; and if they are not employed in building comb, this wax is most certainly lost.'
"Once more on page 93, of the American Apiculturist, Mr. G.W. Demaree says: 'Observation has convinced me that swarms leave the parent colony better prepared to build comb than they ever are under other circumstances; and that if they are not allowed to utilize this accumulated force, by reason of having full sheets of foundation at hand to work out, there will necessarily be some loss; and I think that when the matter is computed, to find the loss and gain the result will show that the foundation really costs the apiarist double what he actually pays for it in cash'...Now, I have often noticed, and especially in looking back over the last year, after reading Mr. Mitchell's "Mistaken Economy," that swarms hived in June would fill their hives full of nice straight worker combs, and the combs would be filled with brood during the first two weeks after hiving; while a colony not casting a swarm would not make a gain of a single pound of honey; nor would a swarm having a full set of combs given them, or the frames filled with foundation, be a whit better off at the end of two weeks. Mr. P.H. Elwood has noted the same thing; thus proving that the theory that it takes 20 pounds of honey to produce one pound of comb, will not hold good in cases where bees desire comb and have free access to pollen. As most of my comb is built at this time, the reader will readily see that the combs cost me but little, save the looking after the colony once or twice while building comb, which is far cheaper than buying foundation, or fussing with a foundation mill."--G.M. Doolittle ABJ Vol 20 No 18 pg 276
Our club extractor is a 3 frame Mann Lake manual one. Works well. I just did my first extraction with it.
When I announced at the bee meeting that I would like to watch someone do a honey extraction the guy next to me said that growing up in Scotland, his dad just scratched that face of the comb and tilted it on a 45 agree angle so the honey poured out onto a cookie tray.
Anyways that is how I did the face. I scratched it with a comb like device which preserved the honeycomb. I am not interested in the hot knife as it is expensive. The only advantage to the hot knife that I can see is that the comb is going to end up flat. I also do not want to heat the honey.
Quote from: divemaster1963 on July 04, 2015, 06:50:02 PM
Here is a photo of my homemade extractor.
[attachment=0][/attachment]
It's made of wood slats with a sewing machine motor and contrller.
DM,
I like the sewing machine motor idea.
Any idea of the RPM? or speed reduction you have used?
Does the rotation distort the wax?
I know that the arrangement of the frames on our club extractor will cause the frames to bow outward with centrifugal force.
Flyboy,
If you get a radial extractor, you will not have that problem. Radial extractors have the frames inserted with the top board at the outer edge of the extractor. Frames are tilted about 15 degrees up which aids in extraction.
If the frames in the tangential extractor are distorting, it may be that they are being spun too fast, too soon.
You need to get rid of some of the weight on both sides before spinning them at full speed on both sides.
Jim
>When I announced at the bee meeting that I would like to watch someone do a honey extraction the guy next to me said that growing up in Scotland, his dad just scratched that face of the comb and tilted it on a 45 agree angle so the honey poured out onto a cookie tray.
I'm sure it depends on the source, the temperature, the water content etc. but it never worked for me. None of it came out except what I scratched out in the first place.
Quote from: Michael Bush on July 07, 2015, 02:35:29 PM
>When I announced at the bee meeting that I would like to watch someone do a honey extraction the guy next to me said that growing up in Scotland, his dad just scratched that face of the comb and tilted it on a 45 agree angle so the honey poured out onto a cookie tray.
I'm sure it depends on the source, the temperature, the water content etc. but it never worked for me. None of it came out except what I scratched out in the first place.
Me too. G
Quote from: sawdstmakr on July 07, 2015, 01:15:43 PM
Flyboy,
If you get a radial extractor, you will not have that problem. Radial extractors have the frames inserted with the top board at the outer edge of the extractor. Frames are tilted about 15 degrees up which aids in extraction.
If the frames in the tangential extractor are distorting, it may be that they are being spun too fast, too soon.
You need to get rid of some of the weight on both sides before spinning them at full speed on both sides.
Jim
Interesting. I hadn't thought of that about the radial extractor and the spinning too fast too soon. Thanks!
Quote from: flyboy on July 07, 2015, 11:44:52 AM
Quote from: divemaster1963 on July 04, 2015, 06:50:02 PM
Here is a photo of my homemade extractor.
[attachment=0][/attachment]
It's made of wood slats with a sewing machine motor and controller.
DM,
I like the sewing machine motor idea.
Any idea of the RPM? or speed reduction you have used?
Does the rotation distort the wax?
I know that the arrangement of the frames on our club extractor will cause the frames to bow outward with centrifugal force.
I have not checked the rpm yet I have a rpm gauge just have not done it yet. I have tested it on empty frames before I started using it. it kicked out only one frame. but it was not in the frame right to begin with. I have been using it reg the pass to years. because I have the foot controller on it I can start out slow and as the honey is spun out I slowly increase the speed. works great .I think the reduction is probably is 8to 1 the rpm on the motor is 2400 listed.
Quote from: divemaster1963 on July 07, 2015, 08:35:06 PM
Quote from: flyboy on July 07, 2015, 11:44:52 AM
Quote from: divemaster1963 on July 04, 2015, 06:50:02 PM
Here is a photo of my homemade extractor.
[attachment=0][/attachment]
It's made of wood slats with a sewing machine motor and controller.
DM,
I like the sewing machine motor idea.
Any idea of the RPM? or speed reduction you have used?
Does the rotation distort the wax?
I know that the arrangement of the frames on our club extractor will cause the frames to bow outward with centrifugal force.
I have not checked the rpm yet I have a rpm gauge just have not done it yet. I have tested it on empty frames before I started using it. it kicked out only one frame. but it was not in the frame right to begin with. I have been using it reg the pass to years. because I have the foot controller on it I can start out slow and as the honey is spun out I slowly increase the speed. works great .I think the reduction is probably is 8to 1 the rpm on the motor is 2400 listed.
OK the reduction is 8 to 1 and 2400. Perfect that's what I wanted.
Excellent idea of a sewing machine motor BTW. I will keep an eye open for one
Check with local sewing machine shop. They may have a old one. Or getl the wife's or mothers old one and replace it with a newer version.
John
Hey check local thrift shop too
Hey I hadn't thought of the sewing shop. Thanks.