Foundationless Harvest (extractor)

**rweakley** · 05-30-2012, 06:14 PM

I was going to try and find a foundationless thread and put this in it, but couldn't find one that made sense so I started this one. I harvested 18 foundationless frames today, mostly tangentially and only had 2 frames that tried to blow out a little bit on me (not a full blow out, bees will be able to fix) and those were 2 new frames drawn this year. I am guessing about 60 or 70 lbs of honey, which I guess considering I robbed them all blind of brood all spring for nuc splits isn't too bad. If our clover survived our little heatwave/drought (cooling off and getting rain again finally) maybe I'll get to harvest again and get the same or more honey.

Rod

**NasalSponge** · 05-30-2012, 06:43 PM

Got to love it and I am glad to hear it, I have yet to try to sling a foundationless frame.

**Bonnie Botkins** · 05-30-2012, 06:49 PM

nice!! what size frames?

**rweakley** · 05-30-2012, 06:56 PM

Medium, but I won't hesitate to extract deeps. I extracted a few foundationless deeps last year and as long as I did tang I didn't have any troubles. Just didn't find any deeps that were all honey yet.

**SRatcliff** · 05-30-2012, 07:16 PM

What kind of extractor? Speed?

**rweakley** · 05-30-2012, 08:17 PM

It is a maxant 3100 handpowered. I have the option of tangential or radial and have decided to used tangential, because even with the flipping of the frames I think it's faster and easier on the frames than radial. The frames were uncapped using a cold serrated knife. I could have done 6 frames tang at a time, but that has them overlap just a hair so I figured I didn't have that many frames to do so I did 3 at a time.

Rod

**MAXANT** · 05-31-2012, 06:09 PM

Excellent! Now send a 2lb jar this way!

**rweakley** · 05-31-2012, 08:35 PM

Now come on Jake you know you've got plenty of honey of your own, not to mention this is some of the lightest and delicious honey I've gotten. I think it's all spoken for.

Rod