Painted myself into a corner

**Moon** · 10-03-2012, 11:13 AM

I'm starting to get a little frustrated trying to figure out the logistics of extracting. This is 100% my doing and I have no one to blame but myself but I'm hoping some of you more inventive DIY'ers can help me out here. I'm about to order a 18/9 frame radial extractor from MannLake so I can pull all the honey off of my hives and start getting things ready for winter. I know I'm getting into the game pretty late but I just haven't had the finances for an extractor with everything else that has been coming up recently. I over looked where I was going to store all of my honey after I extracted it and now I'm trying to find somewhere to store roughly 2,000 pounds of honey. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

**mmmooretx** · 10-03-2012, 11:54 AM

Take a look at a 300 gallon tote locally:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=300+gallon+tote

**Hartz** · 10-03-2012, 12:06 PM

5 gallon buckets...much easier to re-liquify!

Hartz

**mmmooretx** · 10-03-2012, 12:16 PM

34 of them at 60 lbs. a bucket, and easier to handle too.

**Vance G** · 10-03-2012, 12:20 PM

IMO!! Don't halfstep with that little extractor. Didn't you find any in the wanted adds here? Craigs list? A 55 gallon drum will hold close to 700 pounds of your low moisture honey. Do you want to buy a new shovel to get it back out? How are you going to move it? Otherwise go with the 5 gallon buckets. See if you can get a deal on thirtyfive or forty of them from your local large hardware store with lids. They can get them pretty fast actually. Consider talking to a local commercial guy and see if you can trade work for extraction. That was my remedy when I found myself in the tons of honey problem with no facility to take care of it.

**JRG13** · 10-03-2012, 01:03 PM

What did you want to store it in? Food grade buckets were about $5 with lid at Lowes here, maybe little more. What size frames are you using? I would get two to three 5g buckets with a honey gate and strainer that fits in the bucket (i.e. designed for a 5g bucket), fill one bucket with the strainer from the extractor, remove it and open up the gate on it to drain into whatever you want to store it in while you're working on filling the other bucket with gate/strainer. Don't waste ur time filtering at the extractor if you want to maximize efficiency. 5g buckets are relatively easier to store and move around unless you have a forklift. With the 18/9, 9 deeps will give about 45lbs of honey per run (assuming 5lbs honey per frame), so that would be over 40 runs... Mediums, assuming 3lbs per frame.. is about 37 runs. I could be low on those estimates, but it's probably close.

**Moon** · 10-03-2012, 11:33 PM

I looked Vance, I didn't find any other extractors that fit into my price range. I like the idea of the 5gal. buckets and I'm pretty sure that's the route I'm going to go with. Hopefully I can unload my honey extractor in a couple of years and upgrade to a 60 frame. It will just depend on space and how my expansion pans out. Thanks for the suggestions though.

**Vance G** · 10-03-2012, 11:43 PM

I wish I was close enough to loan you my 32 frame dadant with the speed advance--but your signature argues against me having faith enough to trust you at this distance. Neh?

**Moon** · 10-03-2012, 11:51 PM

Well the only way to have the proof you require would be to go out on a limb and show a little trust; however, I'm not planning on making any trips to Great Falls. I doubt you would be on your way to Gillette, WY to drop it off in any case

. On a final note I've already got an 18 frame one on the way so it's a bit of a moot point. Thanks for the assumptions of my trust worthiness based off of my signature though.