# Do i need to purchase honey extraction equipment ?



## Bkwoodsbees (Feb 8, 2014)

I am brand new at this so please be patient. I am getting 2 5 frame deep nucs the first week of April. Do I need to get any honey extraction equipment this year? I live in SC and I believe honey flow is march through May. Trying to get my ducks in a row. Not sure if a nuc would produce a surplus first year down south. Thank you. Robert


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

There is no good reason to have to buy an extractor _this _year. 

There is a _possibility _that your hives _could _do well enough to have surplus honey this year. If that happens, you could:


leave it on the hive for the bees first winter
crush and strain
freeze the frames til you do get an extractor
see if your local beekeeping club offers an extractor for member's use
build your own extractor


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

> Do I need to get any honey extraction equipment this year?

I kept bees for 27 years without any extraction equipment.

http://bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm#combhoney

"All this seems obvious enough, and yet time after time I have seen novice beekeepers, as soon as they had built their apiaries up to a half dozen or so hives, begin to look around for an extractor. It is as if one were to establish a small garden by the kitchen door, and then at once begin looking for a tractor to till it with. Unless then, you have, or plan eventually to have, perhaps fifty or more colonies of bees, you should try to resist looking in bee catalogs at the extractors and other enchanting and tempting tools that are offered and instead look with renewed fondness at your little pocket knife, so symbolic of the simplicity that is the mark of every truly good life." --Richard Taylor, The Comb Honey Book


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## KPeacock (Jan 29, 2013)

I'm a bit further North than you are, but my first year offered me no opportunity to use an extractor. In fact, I've fed a few hundred pounds of sugar via syrup and candy board during the first year. With that said, i have made a couple of extractors. perhaps if i hadn't made them, i would have needed them more


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## Jon B (Apr 24, 2013)

If you are trying to draw out lots of new frames this year you most likely won't need to extract any honey. If you do get some frames of capped honey I would recommend saving them to feed back to your hives or use them to make splits next spring. 

Once you are ready to extract I would check with your local bee club. Often there are community extractors that you can borrow for a week or two. I wouldn't purchase an extractor until you have earned enough many from your hives to purchase one.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

Bkwoodsbees said:


> I am brand new at this so please be patient. I am getting 2 5 frame deep nucs the first week of April. Do I need to get any honey extraction equipment this year? I live in SC and I believe honey flow is march through May. Trying to get my ducks in a row. Not sure if a nuc would produce a surplus first year down south. Thank you. Robert


No, Check with your local club and rent theirs when you will need it, next year.


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## herbcoop (Jun 2, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> > Do I need to get any honey extraction equipment this year?
> 
> I kept bees for 27 years without any extraction equipment.
> 
> ...


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## Bkwoodsbees (Feb 8, 2014)

Thanks everyone. I am just getting nervous . The message I am getting is Bees first honey second if any. Take care of the bees and the honey will come. I like that! Thanks again, Robert...


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Michael, so you just Crush and Strain? 

For 27 years I did. For the last 13 or so I've been extracting...


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