# Extractor decisions



## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

I've been using the crush and strain method, and I'm finding that the bees make honey faster than I can strain it. It's time to acquire an extractor!

I'm not sure if it'd be best for me to go to the hives and switch out honeyframes with empty frames, then spin at home. If I did it this way, how should I then store all of those sticky honey frames? The other option would be to take the extractor out with me and spin in my apiary site. Doing it this way would mean I'd end up camping. If I did that, could I tie an extractor to the roof rack of my car, or would I need to take a trailer with me or maybe even buy myself a ute/van?

If I took one out with me, would I need a mechanical one, or might it be feasible to run an electric one still without access to a power grid? Would using a hand one take too much time for someone who has 40-100 hives?

Does the frame amount that it can spin matter much? I'm not sure if some numbers are more effective than others. 

How successful have people been who've built their own extractor? Are the professionally made ones much more effective? I have a friend who said he'd help me build one, he has an engine to motorise it and it seems simple enough to do though it's a bit beyond my skills. I see that one can get stainless steel mesh to build into baskets to hold the frames. One can then attach the baskets to a rod that sits on something that can rotate... a ballbearing? Then attach that to the sides of a stainless steel drum and install a honeygate underneath, attach it to the engine. Does all the metal, the rod, and nuts, have to be stainless steel for it to be food grade? What kind of things could I use for the drum? Would an oil barrel work?


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## sjj (Jan 2, 2007)

omnimirage said:


> ... If I did it this way, how should I then store all of those sticky honey frames?...
> 
> How successful have people been ...



With the appropriate extractor your frames will be be dry after extraction. 
Such a perfect extraction takes in automatic mode about 7 minutes time . 
Extractor decisions are in fact decisions about your culture. 
I mean your way of thinking, behaving and growing larger or more successful.


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## My-smokepole (Apr 14, 2008)

Over the year their has been a lot of threads. Read! What ever you do. I would buy motor and one of the venders. No Chinese.


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

Well 100 is more the max I can see myself ever having. I currently have 25 hives. I've done some research and I'm rather blown away by how expensive they are to buy. Holding less than 8 frames seems like not enough. Heck, I'm not sure but even 8 frames seems like a low number, at least 9 frames can do a single super in one go. 8-9 frame spinner will cost me about $1300-1500, if I want to do more 12-20 frames then I need to add a good another $1000 on top. Being a frugal person I'm really reluctant to spend $2000-3000 here, that's a very large proportion of my savings, but I do wonder if the 8-9 frame spinners will be good for me in the longrun.

I don't really know what to look for in a spinner. One concern that I have, is some of my supers have deep honey frames, and some have medium honeyframes. Will I be able to get a spinner that can spin both deeps and mediums?

I've done some internet searching and looked at every extractor available to purchase that's within country. I did some brief searching for overseas products, but they were pretty pricey and I figure the freight would be enormous.

Here are the midrange electric spinners:

http://beekeeping.iwoohoo.com.au/el...frame-electric-honey-extractor-premium-grade/

I'm not sure what radial is, but I don't believe this is a radial extractor; does that matter much? It also doesn't seem to have reserve spinning abilities. This 8 frame one is from the same company:

http://beekeeping.iwoohoo.com.au/electric-honey-extractors-for-bee-hives/8-frame-electric-extractor/

It's a little more costly but does reverse spin and is radial; it looks like it spins a lot faster as well. Will it being 8 frame be an inconvenience compared to 9?

This one is radial doesn't specify if it reverses:

https://www.mydeal.com.au/premium-9-frame-radial-electric-honey-extractor

And then there's this one, I'm aversive to buying it though because the company screwed me around with a beesuit that I bought from them:

https://www.beekeepinggear.com.au/product-page/electric-honey-extractor-eight-frames


I found this:

http://www.beesource.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/20frext.pdf

I'm not sure how good the final product will be and really unsure where to find a suitable drum for it.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Beesource has some great information, but if don't live in America or Canada there is not much chance of getting good specific advice on beekeeping equipment. You would be better served asking detailed questions about extractors in an Australian forum.

Looking at the motors on the first extractor you listed, the German one is a very simple design and robust. It spins left and right (reversible). There is an issue with it because you have to set the speed yourself. That means to start the extractor you set it on one, wait till it gets up to speed and for some honey to come out of the frames before you go to the next faster setting this reduces the chance of you frames being damaged. Its time consuming when you could be doing other things like uncapping.

The last motor is Chinese, but can be programmed and so is semi automatic. But it is cheaply made.

I would not recommend either extractor.

Good luck with your search.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Buying extractor is better that you get the complete set up. Sometime buying the 
parts will be more expensive than the entire unit alone. Buy with the intention of 
future hives expansion. If you go too small then the time you spend on extraction will
be more. Some will say that their time is very valuable. So they rather buy bigger to save on
the time. Then you have to find a method to transport the extractor to the hive site. This will depend on
how many supers you need to extract. If not too many you can extract on site. Be aware of the bees all over
your honey when too close to the hives. Maybe a screen tent you will need to. Then you don't have
to camp out unless that is your prefer past time too. Some like to go camping every year. If too many supers then
can take the supers home. Then you don't have to put the extractor on a small trailer. On top of the car is too unstable
that it might fall off because it is too bulky. Whatever you decided on look at the future hive expansion because pretty soon you'll need to buy a bigger unit to accompany your ever growing hives. Did you get my post on using sponges on the veil idea? I got their vent suit too.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Using an extractor is part of a _system_. Frames need to be uncapped before they go in an extractor. It does you no good to have a 20+ frame extractor if you can only uncap 9 frames (for the next extractor cycle) in the time the extractor is completing its current run cycle. If you are spending time adjusting the extractor speed, that is time that you won't be uncapping. 

Radial extractors do not require the frames to be flipped over, but tangential extractors need to be stopped after extracting one side of the frame, flip the frame, and run another cycle. See post #13 here for more on that: http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...omemade-extractor-4-frame-radial-for-about-60

These other threads are about building extractors, but they still have useful info even if you buy a commercial one: 
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?317215-Extractor-(Make-your-own)

In the USA, standard advice would be to borrow or rent an extractor (perhaps from a local beekeeping club) before you make a purchase decision. I don't know whether that is practical in Australia.


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

I really appreciate the feedback Stephenpbird, I had no clue. Do you have any thoughts on the other two? The second seems like my best option, the third seems poor quality to me but I'm unsure. 

@beepro

thanks for explaining some things to me. I think I'll plan to extract at home for now. would a 8 frame spinner be too small for 50 hives? I did read your post. I'm still a bit unsure about it.


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

How can I tell if I need to adjust the speed myself?

I am considering joining a local beekeeping club and they do offer an extractor to borrow.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

To avoid breaking comb, generally extractors are started at a slower RPM. As a portion of the honey is removed, speeds are increased to get the rest of it. (This mostly applies to radial extractors, but if you have 25+ hives a radial extractor is almost certainly the style that you could best use.)

_Some_ extractors can be programmed to increase in speed as the extraction cycle progresses, others would require one to adjust the speed control manually. Whether a particular extractor has that capability or not would be determined by reading the sales literature or contacting the manufacturer. 

I didn't mean to imply that one _needed_ a programmable speed control. I was trying to reinforce the _*system*_ idea. Any [temporary] distraction from uncapping the next set of frames while the current set is being extracted reduces your overall throughput (perhaps to the point that a less expensive extractor is just as "fast"). It doesn't really matter how fast any one part of the process is - what matters is the total throughput. 

Will you be extracting by yourself? That will have a significant impact on throughput. And join the club, and use their extractor til you get a better idea of what you want in an extractor vs the cost.

.


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## Saskie (Mar 12, 2017)

Used extractors can also be a consideration. This may put a quality stainless 30 - 60 frame radial in your budget, and make it easier to sell if it does not meet your needs. Once you know your times on a cycle, a manual speed advance does not take much time to speed up and shouldn't have a significant effect on time spent tending to it.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

omnimirage said:


> I really appreciate the feedback Stephenpbird,


Your welcome.


omnimirage said:


> Do you have any thoughts on the other two? The second seems like my best option, the third seems poor quality to me but I'm unsure.


The first and third extractor you listed are exactly the same.
The second unit looks very similar to the units sold on ebay here in Germany, they are very very cheap.



omnimirage said:


> I am considering joining a local beekeeping club and they do offer an extractor to borrow.


This should be your first step, join and then offer to help someone who has experience with their extracting, it will be time well spent. You will then have a much better idea of what you need and whether you need to buy one at all.



omnimirage said:


> How can I tell if I need to adjust the speed myself?


Once the honey coming out of the frames slows down or stops coming out you could speed it up, but the speed the honey comes out of the frames depends on the extractor size, the type of honey, the temperature and not just the speed the extractor spins at.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

omnimirage said:


> How can I tell if I need to adjust the speed myself?
> 
> I am considering joining a local beekeeping club and they do offer an extractor to borrow.


When you first start spinning a load it’s never balanced and the extractor shakes a bit. When it smooths out after some honey has flowed you can dial up the speed.

The electric extractor has two advantages, the first is rather obvious, you don’t have to crank it. Second is that you can uncap the next load while this one spins.

If you have never used one then join the club and use the borrowed unit. After using it once you will have a much better idea of what you want and why. As said earlier, extractor is but one part of a system. You need to consider uncapping, dealing with cappings, and storage for the honey coming out of the extractor.


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

I think I would be extracting myself though I could probably find someone to help a decent amount of the time if it's quite useful.

I looked at used ones and the only used extractors available currently are ****** overpriced manual ones that hold just a few frames.


**** Stephenpbird. So since it's very cheap I'm guessing it's not worth buying? Someone told me that the 2nd and 4th one is the same also. If these aren't worthwhile, then my options are to build, spend an extra thousand or two buying a bigger one, or buying something overseas.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

omnimirage said:


> If these aren't worthwhile, then my options are to build, spend an extra thousand or two buying a bigger one, or buying something overseas.


You are missing the most important option. Join the club, borrow the extractor, learn what is good and bad about it, then you can make an intelligent choice without guessing.


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

Okay, that's what I'll do then.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The design flaw on the veil is that it will collapse once the head is straight. This issue they
cannot fix yet without having a false advertisement.
That is why I suggest to reinforce it from the inside as a temporary fix. The chin not touching the
veil will not get you sting. Handling that many hives I would get a better suit to fit me.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

omnimirage said:


> Stephenpbird. So since it's very cheap I'm guessing it's not worth buying? Someone told me that the 2nd and 4th one is the same also. If these aren't worthwhile, then my options are to build, spend an extra thousand or two buying a bigger one, or buying something overseas.


I have 3 pieces of advice for you.

1) Join the club

2) Join the club

3) Join the club

They members will be able to tell you where to get a good deal on extractors near you if you need to buy one. I can't believe Aus doesn't make a good extractor, your one of the major honey producers in the world.

The ones on ebay probably will not last long with the amount of colonies you have, they would get you going but it might be better spending more to get the right one and be cheaper in the long run.

By the way join that club...


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

I've been thinking more so about the logistics of honeyspinning. If I were to take empty frames up with me, to replace with full honey frames to take home and extract, I wouldn't be able to fit such in my station wagon. Taking back just 10 supers full of honey would be very difficult to manage. My car has been getting very full as is. I could strap my tool box and other tools on roof racks to my car, if I got tarps I could load some honey supers on my passenger seats. but it doesn't seem practical. I'd have to take a trailer with me to load with honey. I don't own a trailer nor do I have experience with driving one, but that can change I suppose. Maybe I'd need to get a more spacious vehicle, my station wagon has a gas tank in the back which restricts how many supers I can load up. Maybe a van or ute would be better for me. 

Just really doesn't seem practical either way. How do you guys bring back large hauls of honey? It has me thinking again about doing my honey extraction whilst up there. If I got a van, I could maybe set up a honey processing unit inside the van, or get some sort of portable shelter thing to cover myself so that the bees won't swarm me as I'm working. If I did that though, I guess I'd need to buy a manual extractor, not sure how feasible it'd be to use solar panels or a generator to charge an electric one. Then it seems that, I'd be spending days on end manually extracting frames, I'm not sure if I could physically do it.

Bit lost as to how to proceed. Doesn't seem like I have any practical solution.


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## Nhaupt2 (May 31, 2016)

if you extract in the field the bees will murder you and take the honey back.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

If you currently have 25 hives and plan to expand to 40+ you need to think bigger and prepare accordingly. 

I'm doing the math. Even with just 40 hives, and let's say you end up with an average of 2 supers of honey per hive, you will have 80 boxes with 720 to 800 frames to extract. A station wagon or van is really not going to be practical. At the very least you will be needing a pick up truck or trailer, and will still be making multiple trips to the bee yard.

Setting up on site to extract would end up being a complete nightmare for reasons already mentioned above. You should plan on having some type of honey house to do your extracting and to store your supers. Nothing fancy required, a garage or large shed with electricity would work.

Then, moving on to the extractor. The type and size unit you get really depends upon your throughput plans as Rader has already explained. If you will be working by yourself it makes no sense to get an extractor any larger than an 8 frame. If you had a helper dedicated to uncapping while you extract then a larger unit would make sense. You could keep moving without gaps and delays in the process. 

I'm somewhat surprised you are currently doing crush and strain with 25 hives. How much honey do your hives produce annually on average?


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## orthoman (Feb 23, 2013)

25 hives could produce 1 super of honey per colony....that would be 250 frames of honey that need to be extracted ( 10 frames per box at 25 boxes). Sorry but I would question anyone’s sanity that would be trying to harvest that honey by crush and strain. If you are serious about going up to 100 hives, that could potentially be 1000 frames of honey to extract. Buy the best extractor you can find and avoid the cheap stuff.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

omnimirage said:


> How do you guys bring back large hauls of honey?












Deck holds 4 wide by 3 deep, stacked 4 high that's 48 supers, which is pretty much the maximum weight I'd put on this little truck anyways. 3 high is all it can really carry if they are full. When we get back to the honey house that's 24 loads in the extractor, a reasonable day of extracting with the Mann Lake 9/18 extractor.

When it gets back to the house, we have this out on the back acre, fit's a small extracting line nicely. It's purpose built with a small warm room, extractor and bottling equipment set up. It went up this fall, so, hasn't seen it's first honey season yet. Dont forget to account for the extra little expenses of things like getting power and water out to the honey house, adds up if you are a fair distance from existing infrastructure. We already had power fairly close, so less than a hundred feet of conduits in the ground to get the power out there.











If you plan to process the honey from 50 colonies, you need to invest in some infrastructure to make it manageable. I use the word 'invest' intentionally, because you will NOT get full payback in one season. But if you amortize the expense over 5 years, it pays in spades.

ofc, after you get to the level where you are hauling full boxes on a regular basis, you will quickly discover the next problem is avoiding what we call 'beekeeper back', and you will be looking for ways of putting mechanical lift onto that truck, because the first box doesn't seem to bad, but, by the time you get to hauling the 40th box from the truck to the warm room, they start to feel pretty heavy....


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

I think maybe part of the reason why I ponder on the logistics of spinning in the field, because I once worked with a commercial beekeeper who had a processing unit attached as a trailer to his truck, where one would uncap and spin the frames on site. I only worked with him for a few weeks, but the bees were never an issue. Maybe there was a strong flow on at the time. 

I fortunately already have a shed where I can do honey processing. 

Well, I check on my bees about every two months, and about 2/3 of them will have a super full of honey ready to be processed. Each super fills about a 30 kilo bucket, some of that being wax. So to estimate I extract a little over 400 kilos a year. 

So to confirm, an 8 frame extractor is all a single person can manage by themselves? A 9, or 12 might be too much? I figure I could probably often find a helping hand but it's bothersome to rely on others, to do so is often a frustrating exercise.

I like the photos Grozzie. I have a bad back as is so I've been transitioning away from deep sized supers to manleys.


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## orthoman (Feb 23, 2013)

It isn't that you couldn't do it by yourself - because you certainly could. It is just that it takes so much more time and you want to be somewhat efficient with your time. If your time doesn't mean anything, just stay with crush and drain.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

omnimirage said:


> So to confirm, an 8 frame extractor is all a single person can manage by themselves?


I have a 6 frame radial extractor. Working by myself without a helper it works out just right. While the extractor is running I'll be uncapping frames in the uncapping tank and setting them in a holding tank until I have another 6 frames uncapped and ready to go. The timing works out perfect. By the time I have the 6 frames uncapped, the frames in the extractor are ready to be pulled out and then be replaced with the uncapped frames. Extract and repeat. The only down time is about a minute when switching out frames. 

If I had a larger extractor there would be a lot of idle time waiting for more uncapped frames to fill the extractor. With a second person and a larger holding tank I could keep things moving with much less down time on the extractor. 

There is a substantial difference in price moving from a smaller 6 frame extractor to one of the larger units. If you plan to always work by yourself there is no sense in spending all the extra money, there is no real benefit. If you think that one day you will have a dedicated helper, then getting a larger unit to begin with is the way to go.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

omnimirage said:


> So to confirm, an 8 frame extractor is all a single person can manage by themselves? A 9, or 12 might be too much?


The way our system is set up, one person can easily keep up to the extractor, it holds 18 frames. We use mediums for supers, run 9 frame per super, so two boxes is a load in the extractor. We have a setup where that person can be uncapping while a load is spinning, then those frames end up on a rack over a drip tray. When the load is done spinning, pull empties and replace with the waiting uncapped frames. Again it's all about how you set things up, but we can easily keep up to an 18 frame unit with one person in our setup.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

grozzie2 said:


> we can easily keep up to an 18 frame unit with one person in our setup.


Guess I need a lot more practice.  With an electric uncapping knife I could never keep up. Your uncapper is good!


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Mike Gillmore said:


> Guess I need a lot more practice.  With an electric uncapping knife I could never keep up. Your uncapper is good!


We have the lega uncapper, I can uncap two boxes of frames, touch up a few with a scratcher if they had shallow comb, then take a break while I wait for the extractor to finish spinning the load.


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

Can you guys elaborate on the different uncapping methods? I thought one just had to put a hotknife to physically and directly uncap the comb.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Do a google search on "lega uncapper youtube" and you can select a video demonstrating the use of the product.


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## texanbelchers (Aug 4, 2014)

Grozzie, does the slit uncapper require longer spinning?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

texanbelchers said:


> Grozzie, does the slit uncapper require longer spinning?


I dont really have anything to compare to, we've never used a knife to cut cells since we got the extractor we have now. The first couple of years we used a capping roller, the ones like a paint roller with spikes on it which ends up similar, just pokes holes in the caps. My wife chose the lega, and her big reason for wanting the slit system over something like a chain uncapper, no cappings to deal with after extracting. We do 4 loads an hour in the Mann Lake 9/18 extractor, not really sure if they would spin empty any faster if we were using a knife or chain uncapper. I do know this from our own experience, how fast the frames spin empty is far more dependant on the temperature of the honey in those frames, warm frames spin out fast, cold frames take a LONG time. This is why when we built our shed for the bee equipment, one end is partitioned off to give a 4x12 room that we insulated. I can stack 50 mediums full of honey in there by going only 5 high, so no lifting of heavy boxes above shoulder hight, and we can heat the room when we have honey waiting on extracting. It's essentially a warm room sized for our small bee operation, and for winter storage will fit a hundred empty boxes easily if we stack em up to the ceiling.

The real reason we chose the slit system over knives or chain uncapper was because of cappings. This system gives no cappings to speak of, so, that's a huge chore we dont have to deal with after extracting is done, we wont have buckets of cappings to deal with.


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## texanbelchers (Aug 4, 2014)

Thanks, those have been my thoughts on cappings, too. I don't seem to have a market for wax, the candle people I know are "all soy". We have been using the pin roller with the occasional knife for leveling. I'm just planning the next step and the roller units look really nice.


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