# Cheap effective honey extractor?



## Oxankle (Jan 8, 2004)

Morph:

With just one hive it is not cost effective to buy an extractor. Easier to uncap, set comb upside down over a tub in a warm room and leave it overnight. 

Or, take a spoon and scrape the comb and honey off the foundation (if plastic) and then strain. 

Or, if you used wax foundation cut it out, mash and strain. If you are very careful you can spoon the comb off as with plastic foundation above. 

I cannot reccommend extractors for one hive of bees. It is expensive, but the worse part is that for one hive of bees you have to store an extractor just as you would for 20 hive. They take up room, they must be cleaned and sterilized--a real pain for one hive of bees. 

If you are going to have only one or a very few hives, the simpler way to do this is to use thin cut-comb foundation in your supers and cut out the honey each year. Then if you want you can mash and strain or use it as comb honey. 

Of course if you plan to have a lot more bees you might as well buy a good extractor now as later.
Ox


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I kept between one and four hives for 27 years without an extractor. I wouldn't recommend one until you're ready to buy a 9/18 or bigger and get serious. Otherwise it's just not worth the expense.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

http://fire.prohosting.com/topbargu/harve.htm 

Here's a cheap "extractor".


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## 2hives (Apr 1, 2004)

I have 2 hives (first year) and am wrestling with the same issue re. buying an extractor. I like the idea of harvesting the honey without an extractor. I never heard of the up-side-down method to let the honey drip out overnight. Does this get most of the honey out? Also, with using the crushing methed, you're left with no drawn comb for next year. I heard an experienced beekeeper say that your drawn comb is your most valuable asset if you're interested in getting all the honey you can. Any feedback is appreciated.


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## scott_dixon (Apr 29, 2003)

For cripes sake. We aren't beekeepers because we are timid PEOPLE. Build something for goodness sake. I have been contemplating a 2 frame extractor made out of a round plastic 30 gallon trash can. for less than 50 bucks, I think it can be done. Won't be an engineering marvel or anything, but will most likely serve the purpose and I will get tremendous satisfaction out of trying.

Additionally, I robbed 2 frames last night. For the life of me, I am not seeing all this mess everyone harps about. I cheated and scraped comb and all off my wax foundations right into a strainer over some very large bowl-thing I found in the cabinet; took less than 15 minutes, I only strain once, poured my loot into several mason jars, swiped the counter once with a damp cloth and set the frames outside for the bees to find. THAT creates a real party. done. finished. Had premo sweetener for the first time in 6 months in my coffee this morning. Totally different to as what I robbed last fall was nearly white, while this is closer to amber. I'm guessing that is the difference between primarily clover honey, which this is and a goldenrod type, which I believe I pulled in the fall.


I was in the middle of typing this while Mike's link loaded and that is very close to what I had in mind.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Drawn comb is a "nice to have" asset. I'd say your biggest asset if bees. They will happily draw more.

The plastic ones are actually in the ball park of being worth having, but still you can't extract very much very fast in them.

The small stainless variety are almost as much as the large radial extractors and the large radials are actually almost worth the work to extract.

The bottom line is that having drawn comb is nice but not worth spending hundreds of dollars to get. You can always do this method to get some drawn comb:

Just put uncapped honey above the excluder instead of the miller feeder and let them move it down.
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/easysections.html 

I have a lot of wax coated permacomb so I always have "drawn" comb when I really want some. But I could live without it too.


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## wishthecuttlefish (Jun 24, 2003)

This discussion has come up before. The problem is making blanket statements about the value of drawn comb. It really depends on where you are and what you are after. 

For example, for those of us in Maryland where the major honey flow is about 6 weeks long, you really are going to reduce your crop the following year if you crush all your drawn comb to extract the honey. The bees just don't have enough time to draw out and fill a lot of supers in that short 6 weeks. For someone else with a longer honey flow, its not a problem. So, if you live in a place like Maryland and want to maximize your crop and get lots of extracted honey per hive, you will need to use a non-destructive method for extraction.

That doesn't mean you have to buy an extractor! You have several choices:

1. Find a friend who already has one and use theirs. (That's the route I'm taking!)

2. Rent one for $15.00 a day from a few of the local suppliers around.

3. Pay someone to extract it for you. I don't know how much that might cost, but there was an article in Bee Culture recently about it. It's probably cost effective for someone with just 2 or 3 hives.

Kai


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I have extracted for other people. Usually I take my pay out in honey, but I also accept cash.


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## pancho (Nov 5, 2001)

The first year I sqeezed the comb with my hands over a kitchen strainer.
The second year I rented an extractor from the bee lady here in town.
This year I got an 6 frame radial extractor !!
Good luck with what ever you do and have fun
P.S. If you do it in the kitchen every thing gets sticky...


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## Rod350 (Feb 5, 2003)

I don't know if I can describe it very well but. The cheapest homemade extractor I ever saw was a simple wooden box large enough to hold 1 deep frame standing on its side with an extra 6 inches in the bottom to hold the extracted honey away from the comb. This 5 sided box was held together with screws and bolts and the frame to be extracted sat in the box on its side like in a radial extractor on 4 bolts which went through the box about 6 inches up from the bottom, the top of the box is left open. There are 2 eyebolts with approximatly 1 1/4 inch diameter eyes a couple of inches down from the top and up from the bottom along one side which fit over a pipe that has a small hole drilled in it with a cotter pin about a foot from the bottom end of the pipe. There was a large washer that just fit over the pipe and sat on top of the cotter pin. The inside of the box is cleaned and coated with fresh melted paraffin before use.
To use this 1 frame radial extractor a uncapped frame of honey is placed inside the box with the top bar opposite the eyebolts on the box, the box is placed on the pipe with the pipe passing through the 2 eyebolts and resting on top of the large washer, the bottom end of the pipe is stuck in the ground an inch or so and the box with contents is spun around using its own weight almost like a hula-hoop(substitute the person with the pipe) for 20-30 seconds. Remove the box from the pipe let the frame drip a few minutes and remove the frame from the box and dump out the extracted honey and repeat until you are done.
It's cheap, it works best on a hot day and you get a fair workout but after you get the hang of it you can easily extract 1 frame an hour. I do my extracting inside a screened tent with no floor, keep all open honey as far away from the door as possible and the robbers will try to get in over there and leave the door alone.
If you want to e-mail me? I can e-mail you pictures and dimensions.


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## mattoleriver (Sep 20, 2003)

>you get a fair workout but after you get the hang of it you can easily extract 1 frame an hour.

Is this a typo? I don't think a hand powered extractor that extracts one frame per hour is going to catch on very soon!








George


[This message has been edited by mattoleriver (edited June 03, 2004).]


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## honeybeesonly (May 21, 2004)

so haven't built one using these plans but it looks like it would work and be inexpensive.

check it out... http://beesource.com/plans/extractor_4.htm 

Ken

------------------
Good friends are sweet as honey. Winnie the Pooh
http://honeybeesonly.com

[This message has been edited by honeybeesonly (edited June 03, 2004).]


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## Rod350 (Feb 5, 2003)

Well you have to dump out the extracted honey after you spin it and check out your progress. Then spin it again until it is done and dump the honey again. It still takes a long time but I think it is a lot faster than just letting the honey drip out, I have left a frame drip for a week and it still wasn't done. An hour was a guess I know it took me all day to extract a shallow super.
This is why I spent $400.00 on a real extractor this year.

[This message has been edited by Rod350 (edited June 04, 2004).]


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