Annual honey extraction....

[Ghost]

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!

[Michael Bush]

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

[biggraham610]

Crush and strain first harvest, buying extractor for this yrs. G

[mikecva]

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

[divemaster1963]

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

[chux]

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.

[chux]

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.

[Eric Bosworth]

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.

[indypartridge]

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.

[Michael Bush]

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...

[10framer]

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.

[Jacar]

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

[divemaster1963]

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

[BeeMaster2]

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

[Colobee]

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!

[Eric Bosworth]

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.

[chux]

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.

[10framer]

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. 

[Eric Bosworth]

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?

[biggraham610]

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