opinions on hand powered extractors

[rmthurman]

this is my second year in bee keeping and i needed to get my honey extracted. the only thing i could come up with was a small hand cranked extractor.to make a long story short it was practically useless(yes i uncapped).the honey would not hardly run out of the comb. i even tried putting the frames in a container out in the sun to heat it but no luck. what am i doing wrong.tia.

[Hobie]

Was yours geared such that one crank revolution with your hand results in several revolutions of the basket? I can't really think of why it wouldn't work. I have a 2-frame hand crank and didn't even have to spin it that fast for the honey to come out. It did take several frames to fill up the bottom of the extractor before it started running out the gate.

[Oldbee]

"small hand cranked extractor......"it was practically useless, the honey would not hardly run out of the comb". Last summer was my first year of extracting. I don't know how "small" your extractor is but I have the Mann Lake 6/3 side crank extractor. It worked pretty good. I had to turn on the "heat" in my apartment though; WHEW! about 85+ degrees. This year I am going to enclose the supers [5-6] in a big cardboard box with a 100 Watt bulb; [overnight] I'll see how that works; Lol. Maybe your honey is real thick for some reason; you have to spin it pretty fast once you [slowly] alternate sides so as not to break the comb. Hand cranking always will take awhile because you can't proceed with uncapping while your'e "cranking". Don't get "cranky" about it; it will work out fine!

[D Coates]

It may depend on what type of extractor you have? I've got an older 2 frame Kelly reversable. It's big but whoa nelly it worked very well. My 7 year old did the cranking and I did the uncapping. I had trouble keeping up with him. It was over 90 degrees out and in the enclosed garage and we had fans running to keep us from cool. We only did 5 supers worth of frames but it went very quickly.

[Troutsqueezer]

I have a two frame Dadant hand cranker which works fine. Sounds like thick honey to me too. What was the ambient temp during your extraction?

[no1cowboy]

I have a dadant 4 frame extractor wich works fine, maybe your honey was cristolized?

[riverrat]

just a thought did you have the frames in facing the right direction.

[GaSteve]

Last year my honey was so thick I about threw my arm out trying to extract it. You could see the thick strands of honey hanging between the frame and extractor wall. This year was much much easier. Last year the moisture content was about 16%. This year it's running 17.5 to 18%. It makes a world of difference (as does temperature).

For a tangential extractor, does it matter how the frames go in (top bars leading or bottom bars leading)? I've heard several people say it does, but I'm not sure why. I don't pay any attention to the direction.

[wbell]

I use a nine frame manually operated extractor I bought from Brushy. I try to pull no more supers than I can extract in day. I'll pull between 10 to 15 supers with 9 frames to a super during the morning. As soon as I get a bite to eat I begin extracting. If the honey is warm it will sling out in about 15 to 20 minutes. Letting a super sit overnight is just to much work.

[Oldbee]

GaSteve: According to "The Hive and the Honey Bee" ..."the cells are NOT built at exactly a right angle to the vertical but, slope upward from the central plain of the base [foundation] or other [natural cell]. The angle of the upward slope varies from 9 to 14 degrees. This sloping apparently tends to prevent the larvae from sliding out the mouth of the cells before they are sealed". AMAZING! isn't it? Soooo....if the the leading edge was the bottom bar [the edge moving forward] in the extractor as it is spinning it may facillitate extraction. With a RADIAL extractor the TOP bar should be facing the outside edge of the extractor rather than the center. I think that's right? Now I'm confused. Lol.

[GaSteve]

With a radial, it's obvious. I just didn't think it made much difference with a tangential. I'll put that on my list of experiments to do.

[Oldbee]

Well, I didn't think about that either last summer. I'll have to try that and see if it makes any difference; probably helps a little. That means the frames need to be "flipped" vertically rather than horizontal [side to side]; whatever.

[Andrew@ThreeElms]

After seeing the 12 supers sitting on the hives I picked up a 9 frame radial from Miller:

http://www.millerbeesupply.com/Page30.htm

I've only done 4 supers so far, but it was a real breeze. The hand crank is highly geared so that may make a difference, but after a few minutes of cranking I couldn't see anything more coming out. I cranked at a moderate speed for about 5 mins and I was satisfied I wasn't going to get anymore out. Last time I was extracting it was ~85f out. Maybe that's the difference?

[paulka]

I used a 2 frame tangential this year and it worked great.
Only being able to do 2 frames at a time makes it go slow but it really cleaned the frames out well.

I did use an old food dehydrator set to 110 degrees to warm up the frames before extracting, it made all the difference in the world!!

BTW- That Radial extractor looks pretty good, does anyone else have experiences with extractors they would like to share, I would like to hear what kind of extractors people have and how satisfied they are with their units!

Paul

[rmthurman]

thanks everybody for all the ideas.i think i may have had the frames in the wrong way.temperature is'nt the problem,it's been over 95 degrees every day for the last week here in south side va.also i have to confess that this is a home made extractor so i guess it's back to the drawing board.if you don't make mistakes,you ain't doing nothing.