extracting honey comb that's not in frames?

[rober]

I have the equivalent of 5 medium frames of loose comb honey. the comb is sized in  approximately 6 x 6" to 6 x 12"  pieces. how can this honey be extracted?

[Michael Bush]

Crush and strain.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm#crushandstrain

[troyin17331]

if you are selling it just leave it as comb honey. you can get more for it like that i sell my jars at $7 per lb and my cut comb at $16
these work great for straining honey http://www.webstaurantstore.com/12-coarse-china-cap-strainer/407S5012C.html

[GDRankin]

I'n not sure if you saw my reply on the facebook page, so I thought I'd share it here as well.

That strainer works great if you have time to let gravity help and you don't have a ton of extracting to do from frame-less comb.
I was also searching for a similar solution. I do cut-outs and often end up with excess comb, frame-less of course, and needed something that would get the job done quickly and efficiently.
The crush & stain method just wasn't doing it for me, so I came up with a modification to a commercial salad drier/spinner.

Here's more info as well as pics:
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,45470.msg393332.html#msg393332

Troy asked about the drain ... "the only draw back i could for see is the lack of reservoir in the bottom and the drain hole in the bottom not letting the thick honey flow out fast enough. was that an issue or did you modify that to accommodate the viscosity of the honey?"

My reply ... I had the same concerns when I first started looking into this spinner as an option. There's about an inch and a half space below the basket, so it does not hold a huge amount of honey before needing to be emptied. And the drain hole, designed for water of course, is not large enough to use for honey effectively - especially in a cool environment.
On average, I get two sets of comb extracted between pouring the honey out. By two sets, I mean two loads of comb spun out on both sides.
So, while it's not a perfect system, it does save me a lot of time and gets the honey from the comb with a pretty high level of efficiency.
The initial modification, of adding the wire basket inside the plastic basket, was pretty simple and did not alter the actual device, so I would have been able to return the whole thing for a refund if I wasn't pleased. After a few hours of use and a couple of minor adjustments, I decided to keep it and I'm more than pleased.
I've considered removing and modifying the drain plug to, as you asked about, to accommodate the thick honey flow, but haven't decided yet . . . since it is not that much trouble to empty manually after a couple of loads.
Is this for everyone? No I don't think so, but overall, I think it was well worth the investment for me, considering I do a lot of removals and needed something better than the old "crush & strain" method.

[Eric Bosworth]

You could use a small apple cider press. http://www.milkwood.net/2012/03/26/new-press-for-crushing-wild-honeycomb/

[rober]

I do not do a lot of loose comb but I am starting to do more cut outs which would make it worthwhile investing in a press. I found this;
http://pleasanthillgrain.com/tabletop-fruit-press-1-25-gallon  it's not very big but the price is reasonable. the others I found were in the $300.0 to $500.00 range. I have separated honey in my solar wax melter but obviously that won't possible this time of year & if I store it until warm weather there's a chance it could mold. I wonder if I could put a halogen work light over my solar wax melter & produce enough heat to melt wax?

[GDRankin]

That's a pretty nice little press at not a bad price. And something like that should do the trick for small scale extracting.
As far as the solar system, I'm not sure how warm your melter gets, but I'm not sure I'd want melting wax mixing with my honey. Are you talking about using the melter *after* you extract the honey, or *to extract* the honey from the wax?
Just curious.

[rober]

I use the melter for cappings after I extract & there is always some honey that gets separated out of the wax. I usually feed that to the bees or use it for cooking. I was wondering if it would work to extract the honey from this loose. the easiest thing to do with this small batch of comb would probably be to put a 2" spacer under the inner cover, lay this comb on the frames above the cluster, & give this honey to the bees.