# buying a cappings spinner?



## Ian

depends on how much money you want to spend?


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## BMAC

I have a Maxant Jr. Nice little unit. I found it can handle about 5 gallons of honey soaked cappings every 4 hours, however I am going to try something a little different with it this year and heat my honey and wax slurry before it goes into the Jr spinner. I If all goes well I should only have to clean it out twice a day. We will see.

It's not a Pain to clean out. 2 wing nuts and a screen. I found if you pull the screen out and pull the cappings off the screen, it cleans up faster than trying to pull the wax off the screen in the drum itself. It does have an eyelet in there if you decide to pull the entire basket to clean. I never found it an issue and the basket doesn't weigh too much empty so I have never used the eyelet. You can have it cleaned out in 10 minutes and set back for spinning more cappngs.


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## Ben Little

Ian> I just don't want to waste my money on something cheap if it would be better to wait until I can get a better unit. I don't really have the money to throw around for one but I think it is needed this year. I was hoping to keep it under 2500-3000 but I know I probably won't find a continuous spinner for that amount.

BMAC> Good to know that they aren't a pain to clean, I have seen some videos on them in use but not cleaning them out and I was wondering if they were difficult. Do you use anything special that you like to clean out the wax with?

Thanks
Ben


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## babybee

Buy a used spin float. No reason to spend 15 grand at this stage in the game.


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## BMAC

Ben the basket on the Jr spinner is lined with a screen material thats held in place by centrifugal force. Nothing more than your hands, maybe a hive tool until all the cappings are done. Then general cleaning as you would any of your extracting equipment.


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## Ian

I was exactly in the same boat as you Ben. I use to have an old drum spinner, did the job. This year I was able to invest into the spin float system. The problem with a spin float is you need a pump, heat exchanger, and spinner. I have seen used spin floats for $5000, used pumps for $2000 and used heat exchangers for $2500. You got to make sure these old machines are reconditioned. Old heat exchangers are a gamble as the tubing may be pitted if the operator used water as the heating fluid. 

Cowen has a good spinner, it allows you to recover the wax by turning a crank. I have herd good things about that machine. new is around the $8000


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## MAXANT

Don't get the 2 machines mixed up. 
The spin float and cappings spinners are 2 different machines.
JR/SR spinner are designed for CAPPINGS only
Spin Floats are designed for EVERYTHING


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## Ben Little

What do you mean "everything" ?


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## Roland

If I may be so bold, I believe "everything" means just that, all of the honey and wax, from the extractor and uncapper, mixed together. I believe "cappings" means drained cappings.

Crazy Roland


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## Ben Little

I see, I just went to Maxants site and read that the "senior" spinner is the one you can uncap right into the basket, the junior must need the cappings drained first.
Thanks


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## BMAC

I haven't much drained the cappings before they hit the Jr Spinner. I do however warm them in a 5 gallon bucket and slowly dump the bucket into the spinner with no issues.


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## MAXANT

Ben Little said:


> I see, I just went to Maxants site and read that the "senior" spinner is the one you can uncap right into the basket, the junior must need the cappings drained first.
> Thanks


Nope, both are the same machine. One is 20" diameter (jr) and the other is 30" Diameter (sr)
Uncap directly into or dump cap pings into. 
Whatever floats your boat


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## Ben Little

Okay so I guess it's a Junior spinner for me this year


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## The Honey Householder

I have two Sr. Maxant spinner. Talk to others that have tried the Jr. and say if you are in the honey business don't waste you money on the the Jr. All the guys that have bought the Jr. have upgrade to the Sr. within 2-3 years. Maxant makes nice equipment and it will take a beating. My spinners are 20+ years old.


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## suttonbeeman

Ron...I figured you had a spin float


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## The Honey Householder

Rick..hard to replace equipment that does the job so well. Would have to redo the whole setup if I change to a spin float. I like my $$$$$$$. Wouldn't mine a bigger warehouse with more truck docks.


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## dgl1948

I agree with the others that say stay away from the JR. We have the senior and it does the job but there are issues with this system. see my other posts here. If you can go the spin float way. Yes, it is a lot more money but that is where you will be going in the end.


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## Ben Little

Well okay thanks for totally confusing me about the junior inch:
I will have to do some more research on what machinery is the best for my operation, I intend on going to 450-500 hives maximum, I want to be able to manage them myself and not have to hire anyone if possible. 
Next year we will have around 200++ hives


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## bigsteven56

How much honey do you get out of your capings? I tried finding this on maxant and other websites but couldn't find any information on how much more honey you would collect. Say if you had a 5 gallon pail full of cappings how much honey would you say you could expect? I know its not an exact ratio but if someone could give me a ballpark answer I would really appreciate it. We have 115 hives this year but plan on getting bigger. Thank you


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## Ben Little

From what I have read and depending on your method of harvesting, I found an average of 1:100 meaning 1 pound of wax for 100 pounds of honey. I might be wrong but it must be somewhat close.
The site I have read and from other larger beekeepers is where I gathered my information from. So there would be a lot of honey in 1 5 gal bucket to extract still.
Some places say 2:100, I think it depends on the thickness of combs and if you crush and strain.

Either way I am getting a spinner


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## jim lyon

I don't think there is a definitive number. The heavier the flow, the heavier the wax secretion instinct becomes.
This time of year I do a lot of driving the area on evenings and week ends, spot checking bee yards to determine where our time is best spent in the coming days. 
Here's an observation that I have noticed through the years. You can usually get a real good idea for how full the top box is by knocking on the lid just like you would knock on a door (we use a non-recessed lid). The fuller hives build burr comb up under the lid resulting in a solid "knock" while the emptier ones sound hollow......EXCEPT on boxes which contain a number of sheets of foundation. Many of those sound hollow yet are nearly full as all the bees comb making energy goes into drawing out foundation with little energy spent making additional, relatively useless, burr comb on the top bars. My conclusion is that when a flow is in progress that wax secretions are instinctively tuned to building new comb and not filling out drawn comb where the needs are much less. More drawn comb = more burr comb.


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## Beetastic

It would be nice to know a ballpark number to help determine how much honey is being separated from the cappings. Will it net you 1000lb of honey and enough wax for bricks/candles to pay itself back in a season? Plus how much time is saved? The Jr could be a cheaper introduction and serve your needs for a season or 2. Resale on these are pretty good, and then you can get exactly what your operation needs without going full chips in too early.


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## Scott J.

Before I bought my Maxent Sr spinner several years ago, I had left all my wax cappings to drain for about a month before the spinner showed up in my honey house. I had always let the cappings drain this way for years and was curious as you as to how much honey I would be able to spin out. I filled six five gallon buckets with cappings. What I ended up with was six gallons of honey from the spinning process. Worth the money to buy the spinner, it will have a return on your investment.


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## Makin' Honey

Ben Little, I needed some way to spin my cappings and I do not have room for a spinner until I build a much larger building so what to do? I have a 60 frame Dadant extractor. I built 6 screened boxes out of old shallow supers, place them in the extractor, then I can scoop my cappings in and spin them out. The boxes hold right at 35 gallons of cappings. I extract thru the day, draining off the honey from the cappings, at the end of the day I scoop the cappings into my homemade boxes and spin them out. Hardest part is dumping out the wax after the spinning. Attached are some photos. You will see in the photos I took one end out of the shallow super, covered one side with plywood, the other side with 1/8" hardware screen, reinforced around the top with 1x2 lumber, 1x1 lumber to hold the screen on the box and a lid to keep the wax in while spinning. I placed a 1x1 across the middle of the screen to keep it from buldging out while spinning, it needs two like in photo #8. Maybe this will get you by till later like it is me. The cost is right, about one day of my own 'free' labor. Victor H


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## Ben Little

Very cool ! I wish I had a bigger radial extractor for that, I might build a smaller box for my 1400 maxant and try it. Thanks for the pictures !


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## RAK

Victor, How much honey do you get out of 6 boxes worth of capping?


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## Makin' Honey

RAK, Obviously it depends on how 'wet' the cappings are with honey. If wet cappings I get around 10 gallons honey, if I let them drain over night or so about 6 gallons honey.
Victor H


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## PerryBee

I have just used my new to me Maxant Jr. for the first time this year. I uncap directly into it. I lift off the cappings with a fork, I can do about 20 frames in 20 minutes, just the amount of time my Dadant 20 takes to spin. Once I have the extractor running I uncap the next 20 into my spinner and hold them in my uncapping tray. The timing seems to work out perfect for me, no bottlenecks. I just picked up a used Kelley vibrating jiggle knife, so that may change things once I put it into the mix.
I was amazed at the amount of honey I am retrieving that I "lost" in previous years. I figure I have 6 three gallon buckets of dry cappings so far, and have emptied over 6 gallons of saved honey from those cappings. It might not pay for itself in year one, but it won't take a lot longer than that. I'm not half done extracting yet.
65 hives, not commercial, but it might give you an idea.


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## honeyshack

The first time I used a cappings spinner....maxant jr. For 100 hives, average 180lbs a hive, we saved at least 1 barrel, 600 lbs of honey with the spinner. That was with a flail chain uncapper.


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## Rick55

Scott J. said:


> Before I bought my Maxent Sr spinner several years ago, I had left all my wax cappings to drain for about a month before the spinner showed up in my honey house. I had always let the cappings drain this way for years and was curious as you as to how much honey I would be able to spin out. I filled six five gallon buckets with cappings. What I ended up with was six gallons of honey from the spinning process. Worth the money to buy the spinner, it will have a return on your investment.


Hi Scott
Just bought a Jr. Uncapper. Had my cappings in buckets as you did. Warmed bucket to about 90 deg. Dumped in one bucket, ran spinner all day ended up with 1/2 cup honey in bucket. Capping are full of honey. The only thing I can think of is that I would compact the cappings down in the bucket so I could get more in bucket and they are very dense.
Any ideas why honey is not spinning out
Thanks Rick


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## jim lyon

Rick55 said:


> Hi Scott
> Just bought a Jr. Uncapper. Had my cappings in buckets as you did. Warmed bucket to about 90 deg. Dumped in one bucket, ran spinner all day ended up with 1/2 cup honey in bucket. Capping are full of honey. The only thing I can think of is that I would compact the cappings down in the bucket so I could get more in bucket and they are very dense.
> Any ideas why honey is not spinning out
> Thanks Rick


Honey probably contains some granulation.


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## Ben Little

Is your honey too thick ? We have a Jr spinner (which I know is too small for us but only what I could afford to buy this year) and it works fine for cappings, I think if you have stored your cappings and the honey isn't coming out of them, try warming them up more, if you have crystallized honey in there I doubt it will come out. We ran ours minimum 4-5 hours after loading it and it did a good job, some were ran longer depending on the amount of honey that was mixed in the cappings. We used a chain uncapper and caught the cappings/honey in food grade containers and just kept swapping them out and filling the spinner slowly. Worked fine for us.


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## jim lyon

He ran 90 degree honey "all day" and just got half a cup of honey out. Granulation is the only possible explanation I can come up with. If the honey is exceptionally dry, a very light misting of warm water (steam is ideal) will free up a lot of honey but I kind of doubt it's going to help much given what he describes.


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## Ben Little

I suppose, maybe he will have to melt it all down to get it out and just feed it back to the bees in spring.


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## Ian

Seems to me like a long time to run a spinner. How much comes out after 10 min ?


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## gmcharlie

I would look close at wax presses, I made that decision this last month, going that route instead of a spin float. no heat exchange required. goes under the uncapper. going to pump the stuff from the extractor back thru it also. Just a thought there is an option to the old standard


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## jim lyon

Ben Little said:


> I suppose, maybe he will have to melt it all down to get it out and just feed it back to the bees in spring.


Perhaps that will be his only good option. I've dealt with cappings like this from time to time and what a PITA it can be, it's amazing how just a little granulation can plug up a spinner. 
A separator is much better in that you don't have to push stuff through a screen of sorts.


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## high rate of speed

Wax press is only for slum.will not help recover any honey there.


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## gmcharlie

I think your mistaken The new screw presses are designed just for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQu8noAD6-4


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## zhiv9

A comparison of 3 of the available presses in this thread:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?319158-Wax-Press-comparison


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## high rate of speed

Seems pretty high tech, for just a couple hundred pounds. With the right melter you can recover the honey.


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