# Growing Pains



## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

The key words being "for the money". Cowen makes great equipment, the 60 frame unit I think would suit you very well. I have heard even the 28 frame system will run a surprising amount of honey. You need a space that will work for this type of unit (long) The real key to making these systems run well is having good quality standard frames. Maxant is also making something similar at a much better price point (so I have been told anyway) so with that said "take it away Maxant.............!"


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

On avg. year I run about 4500-5000 supers. Is a 120-128 frame setup to big. This year my avg. week pull was 600+ supers. I like to have everything extracted and back on the bees the same week. With the faster extracting operation I would be running 1200 hives. New frames are on the list of new equipment. 
The setup I was looking at was a cook n beals 128 frame line. I know $$$$, but I'm looking for a setup to last me the next 30 years. Does anyone run this line and know about what it cost. I was thinking it was around $80K.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

Cowen hands down is the best around and built to last. Greg just posted a vid of their new 120 ram air system from Cowen. For 1200 hives their 60 frame system would work fine for you...I think they have a couple of trade ins that would run cheaper then new and they go over them to make sure they are up to speed.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I actually do run an older Cook and Beals 128. We have had good luck with it, we typically figure a change takes 1 1/2 to 2 minutes and we run loads at least 8 minutes. That adds up to over 80 mediums an hour. They make good stuff though, for some reason Cowen seems to be doing most of the auto load business now days. Check out cooknbeals.com They are listed at 35,000. Figure you need at least 50' of length to fit it in and have room on each end. I wouldnt underestimate the amount of honey that can be run through the 60 frame system. A large outfit near me runs two of them side by side and are running running well over 1,000 drums a year.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Jim, That is just $35K for just the extractor.inch: Wonder what the different would be running two 60 frame compared to one 120.


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

jim lyon said:


> I have heard even the 28 frame system will run a surprising amount of honey.


does anybody know what this machine will avg a day (deeps) with two attendents running it?


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Hey Ron, so you are expanding eh, I knew something was up when you said you were looking to buy 5000 frames the other day. The memories of the 4 frame extractor in the kitchen days are fading fast, I can see you with one of those extracting setups like in the greg stahlman video, might have to do an addtion to the honey house though. John


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## gregstahlman (Oct 7, 2009)

jim is right, you need a minimum of 50 ft in length to work comfortably. i know of a certain outfit that had four 60 frame machines and they had to get rid of them because the cycle time was not great enough and the combs still had a little honey left in them. we actually put a different drive spocket on the uncapper to slow it down. i think it does around 9 deep frames per minute. this allows a longer spin cycle time on the extracor and does a much better job cutting the combs. we were die hard cook n beals for many years but we switched to a Cowen about 9 years ago and love the machines. here is a list of equipment we needed for one extracting line. the prices are approximate because i dont know for sure what everything cost in the end.

cowen 120 frame extractor- $36,000
cowen uncapper-$7000
deboxer- $1200
super conveyor with bottom bar cleaner-$3500
3 inch PC pump-$6500
2 inch PC pump-$3200
heat exchange unit-$10,000
spin float honey seperator-$14,000
roller track for empty box return- $2000
and all new stainless pipe for pumping honey to the holding tanks. haven't seen the bill for that yet

also we needed a bigger boiler to run 2 systems and our wax melters-$40,000

making honey-priceless


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Greg, Those are the numbers I was seeing. One of my big honey buyer owns a steel sheeting company. Looking to design a new building and start equipment sales, web site Ok that might be a bit much. 

5000 new frames for the next seven years and should have everything changed out and then another 2000-3000 new frames each year to add to the company. Hey up until last year I hadn't had new equipment since 1982. Thinking it time to do the updating.

85% of my extracting operation in maxant. It's done me good for the last 20+ years but I think its time to take it to the next leave. OK it pass time. I've been in the business long enough to know. If you don't have the cash you don't do it.


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## Nick Noyes (Apr 28, 2005)

We have 2 cowen 120's one in Idaho and one in ND. 
In Idaho four of us can run 600 mediums a day which is about 20 drums.
Our ND crew(about 6 people) runs about 900 mediums a day which is about 30 drums. But everythings bigger in the Dakotas.
We have been using cowen stuff for about 25 years now and have had good luck with it. Uniform frames is the key to making them run smooth.


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

Amazing how that calculates to abot 21 lbs per med. box.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Nick Noyes said:


> We have 2 cowen 120's one in Idaho and one in ND.
> In Idaho four of us can run 600 mediums a day which is about 20 drums.
> Our ND crew(about 6 people) runs about 900 mediums a day which is about 30 drums. But everythings bigger in the Dakotas.
> We have been using cowen stuff for about 25 years now and have had good luck with it. Uniform frames is the key to making them run smooth.


Geez, how many days do you run 900 mediums/day? John


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

hey ron about two years ago we got a 80 frame equinox extractor. I love it! we run a Dakota gunness right into the extractor, Two guys can run abot 60 boxes and hour, with three guys we can get up to around 90 boxes. The extractor has a built in screw pump so we pump right in to our holding tank the cappings fall into our old kelly melter (does a good job but there has to be a better way). 

It will run any frame you give it due to the gunness uncapper. and it spins them out very fast, and it is compact the set up takes up about 15X10 ft with every thing 

and the best part it is cheap
the extractor cost about 7000 with the pump and the uncapper is at 5000$

i would take this set up any day over a 60fr cowan as i ran one in Fl and hated it! 
come on over and take a look Ron love to have you up here. 

Nick


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Keith Jarrett said:


> does anybody know what this machine will avg a day (deeps) with two attendents running it?


Sorry Keith cant help you out on that one, I only know of one guy that has that system and I dont know him very well. I think it is a turnkey set up with pump included but I really dont know. I see Cowen dosent have any info on their web site about it, makes me wonder if they are making some changes. Hey Nick you are running some pretty long hours to get 900 a day through one! I usually figure 10 minutes per load or about 84 per hour is max and still get your combs dry and that can start to stress the spinner if they are running heavy. Around here if we hit about 600 its Miller time!


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## soupcan (Jan 2, 2005)

2 older 60 frame Dadant extractors worth $2000. each
1 25 year old Gunness uncapper " $2000
2 people can run 60 supers an hour no problem.
Yes it works better ( faster ) with 3 or 4 people but 2 can handle this system just fine.
We had a 9 year old feeding the Gunness the other day ( very safe machine )
Not at all fancy but gets the job done for a lot less $$$$$


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## Nick Noyes (Apr 28, 2005)

They run about 30 days depending on the year. They are also running a 12 hour shift to do this.
I don't go to ND anymore. I am with you Jim after 600 it is definately miller time.


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## Brian Suchan (Apr 6, 2005)

soupcan said:


> 2 older 60 frame Dadant extractors worth $2000. each
> 1 25 year old Gunness uncapper " $2000
> 2 people can run 60 supers an hour no problem.
> Yes it works better ( faster ) with 3 or 4 people but 2 can handle this system just fine.
> ...


Not so sure on the 60 boxes/hour but with two people 40/hour is capable. Our biggest limiting factor is how we handle our cappings. Right now cant justify the added exspense.


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

Hey Nick you are running some pretty long hours to get 900 a day through one! I usually figure 10 minutes per load or about 84 per hour is max and still get your combs dry and that can start to stress the spinner if they are running heavy. Around here if we hit about 600 its Miller time![/QUOTE]

hey Jim we dont run 900 a day dont know where you got that, with three guys we are running 90 supers and hour so in a 9hr day we could hit 810 supers. I guess if we ran for 10 hours we could do 900 but i can take that much fun in a day lol


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Keith:

I sent my guys to extract my honey at a place that owns a Cowan 28 framer. They averaged 22 boxes an hour. It goes between 20 -24 boxes per hour. It depends how full boxes are. If they are very full the spinner becomes the rate limiting factor. To get that kind of rate the set-up has to be efficient, as in enough room and not to much time is spent moving pallets from the hot room to the extracting room. The guys working have to be serious and have their noses to the grindstone, not a lot of time for chit chat. Basically it's just working steady. The owner of the machine onlt gets 8-10 boxes per hour from local labour. Lots to be said for offshore labour.

Ron:

As far as Cowan machines go with air rams , they are great. The only thing with them and it's not a small thing is frames must not only be uniform they must be of high quality. They have to be straight , no twisted ones. They must not have metal shoulders. Otherwise when you try to load and unload frames into the extractor the frames will bind, twist then fall off the conveyor. You'll curse, then load them on the conveyor again after having removed the offending frame/frames and hope all goes better the second time around. That's the problem it only takes one bad frame out of 60 to make a whole bunch of them fall off the conveyor. It takes one seaon to remove the worst offending frames and probably another one to get rid of the worst of them. At that point you can probably consider expanding your outfit. Keep a radial extractor on hand so you can extract the frames with the broken ears or the metal ears. When you get to the day where you have good uniform frames it's amazing how much honey and how many frames can be extracted in a day.

So you just don't have the extractor and all the goodies that come with it, you have a whole bunch of frames also. 

Jean-Marc


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

The setup I have now is two-80 framers and a maxant uncapper over spinners. With two guys, I run 25 supers an hour. Which if the boxes are full is about 8 barrels a day. Makes for a long season. I like the idea of pulling honey all week and extracting one day out of the week for the same number of barrels. The same guys pulling can do the extracting. Right now there is two guys pulling and two guys extracting.:doh: Way to much labor being paid out.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

On all the videos I've seen of fast production systems they are using wooden frames. Can the fast systems handle plastic frames?


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## beekeeper_sd (Oct 30, 2008)

swarm_trapper said:


> hey ron about two years ago we got a 80 frame equinox extractor. I love it! we run a Dakota gunness right into the extractor, Two guys can run abot 60 boxes and hour, with three guys we can get up to around 90 boxes. The extractor has a built in screw pump so we pump right in to our holding tank the cappings fall into our old kelly melter (does a good job but there has to be a better way).
> 
> It will run any frame you give it due to the gunness uncapper. and it spins them out very fast, and it is compact the set up takes up about 15X10 ft with every thing
> 
> ...


We currently have a gunness with three ancient 72 frame kelley extractors. We like the gunness because, like you said, you can run any kind of frame through it and not have to worry but, we manually load the extractors... time consuming, hard work.

We are currently looking into upgrading to a cowen 120 frame air ram system. 

Your system intrigues me since you are apparently running the dakota gunness in an automated system. How does that work?


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

with this extractor you are still loading the frames by hand but it is quite easy as you lift them off the gunness and in the baskets quite a bit easier than loading radials. Nick


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## beekeeper_sd (Oct 30, 2008)

swarm_trapper said:


> with this extractor you are still loading the frames by hand but it is quite easy as you lift them off the gunness and in the baskets quite a bit easier than loading radials. Nick


Okay. I wondered how you could have automated loading with the way the gunness works. Thanks for the clarification.


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