spinners/filters

[ozzy]

I help a park dist extract our combined honey crops-120 to 150 supers and possibly go to 200. Due to scheduling restrictions of the room we use I must have all extracting done in about a week The room has to be prepared, equipment setup, inspected, honey extracted, bottled and equipment removed/cleaned in time to be used for something else. I have lots of volunteers but the extracting process has two bottlenecks-filtering honey coming out of extractors (2-20 frame radials)and removing honey from cappings.
I have been using bucket filters and a final filter over the storage tanks(440,880)but the process is slow. I was thinking of buying another 880 tank and just dumping all extracted honey w/wax capping into it. My thought is that by the time I get it filled I can start tapping off buckets of mostly clean honey from the bottom and pouring it through the final filter. I am not sure if this will work fast enough since I will have to tap off a full tank every 4 hrs to limit my extracting time to three days. A jacketed tank would be more expensive and faster but would it be fast enough? I hate to invest in equipment that doesn't improve my filtering speed and ease.
My other problem is that I don't have time to wait around for my honey to drain from my cappings and not enough money to buy an expensive spinner. I thought about buying Kelly's spinner but wonder if it will do the job.
The Maxant 1200 jr may be best choice but don't know of anyone that has one. HELP-advice needed
Ozzy

[sierrabees]

Do you have heaters and wraps on all of your tanks and extractors. Do you keep the supers in a hot room. If you can get honey up to 100-110 degrees the whole process moves much faster. If you don't have a hot room you can tent the supers with those blankets the firefighters use shiny side in and use a ceramic type space heater to bring them up to 90-95 degrees before extracting. I wouldn't heat the comb much hotter than that or you might lose too much comb in the extractor. Of course you have to be carefull about the placement of the space heater and monitor the temperature so you don't overheat or start a fire. A lot of times you can make do with stuff that is readily available instead of buying expensive equipment.

[ozzy]

I do have heating cable used for ice in gutters on my extractors and my knives on my extractor are hot water heat but I think you idea of heating the super room is good. The problem is the room we extract in is air conditioned. It keeps the honey from taking on water but it does cool things off. I don't think I would benefit much from heating the super room because the honey is warmed when it comes out of the frames and hits the wall of the extractor, however it might help some.
I still think I need more equipment.
ozzy

[Joel]

A clarifying tank and honey pump will solve your problems and should be affordable if you are extracting around 4000 lbs a season. You should be able find a maxant-240 lb used if you look a bit and a pump for around $1500. It is hot water jacketed and you can run 200-300 lbs and hour through it, the pump and the filter bag you put on the end of the line which will pump directly into a tank. (should have a 600 lb. tank). We uncap directly in the tank (chain uncapper) and then melt the wax when we are done with a run. Works great.

[ozzy]

what do you need to run the temp of the clarifying tank? I pruduce a good product so I don't want too damage it by heating. I wonder how long it takes for the honey to go through the clarifyer?

[brent.roberts]

If you keep the temp at 95 degrees it will flow just fine. And thats only 3 or 4 degrees warmer than the bees keep it so I don't think you need to worry about damaging it.

[Joel]

Brent is quite right, if you are concerned about heat, 1st. damage comes to the enzymes in honey which happens around 105 F. 100 or below the honey will stay like new and can be pumped and strained easily. One key point is you need to keep the extracting area warm to keep the honey warm in the comb prior to extracting. If this is not done you will have long periods between runs for the honey to warm to the 95F.