# De-capping options for a sideliner



## chrisnbarnes (8 mo ago)

I am squarely a "sideliner" (60+ hives) who is thinking about getting a better de-capper. 

I just got done pulling this year's honey harvest, getting about 650 lbs out of 35ish boxes. I have a knock-off of a Maxant MUTT and a hot-knife, but the de-capping process is definitely still the bottleneck in the honey processing operation. 

I'm looking for advice/suggestions on how to speed this process up without breaking the bank (keeping in mind the size of my operation).


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## G3farms (Jun 13, 2009)

Something doesn't quite sound right about this. 
You say you are using a 4 frame hand crank extractor and the bottle neck is uncapping frames?
Sounds more like the bottle neck is not enough hands. to crank ans uncap at the same time.

I can uncap 4 frames with a hot knife in a matter of minutes. Even if you took 2 minutes per frame that is only 8 total minutes, and it would definitely take longer than 8 minutes to crank out four frames on a tangential extractor if you did both sides twice.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Chris:

Have you looked into the Simple Harmony Farms uncapper?



https://simpleharmonyfarms.com/uncapper


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## Tumbleweed (Mar 17, 2021)

That’s pretty slick!


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

My review of the Simple Harmony Farms Uncapper. Made this video 4 years ago. Still use it. Still love it. I just ran 737 frames through it between July 1 and July 4 of this year.

Simple Harmony Farms Uncapper Product Review


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## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

psm1212 said:


> My review of the Simple Harmony Farms Uncapper. Made this video 4 years ago. Still use it. Still love it. I just ran 737 frames through it between July 1 and July 4 of this year.
> 
> Simple Harmony Farms Uncapper Product Review


Watching your video a few years ago is what prompted me to buy the Simple Harmony Farms decapper, a choice I am glad I made.

Alex


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## COAL REAPER (Jun 24, 2014)

with 60+ hives, why are you getting a mere 18ish pounds of honey per super?
harvesting only 650lbs, the hot knife bottleneck should not add up to that much time...


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

chrisnbarnes said:


> I just got done pulling this year's honey harvest, getting about 650 lbs out of 35ish boxes. I have a knock-off of a Maxant MUTT and a hot-knife, but the de-capping process is definitely still the bottleneck in the honey processing operation.


Doesn't sound right at all to me. We use the Mann Lake 9/18, and I can easily uncap the next load (18 frames, 2 boxes) using the hot knife while the first one spins. then again, doing the numbers, 35 boxes to get 650lb suggests the frames are not full and you are dealing with a lot of shallow spots, in which case I could see it being a big slowdown. 35 boxes of medium frames that are well drawn out and full, I would expect well over a thousand pounds of honey.

One thing we have learned over time, frames drawn out the first time are a PITA at uncapping time as they are usually not drawn out well, we put 10 frames in the box when putting in new frames. With drawn frames only 9 go in the box, they get drawn better and are a breeze to uncap cleanly.

From what you put above, I'm thinking your uncapping problem is more about poorly filled frames than your methods.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

AHudd said:


> Watching your video a few years ago is what prompted me to buy the Simple Harmony Farms decapper, a choice I am glad I made.


Same here. You should be getting some royalties!


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