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Honey House

61K views 170 replies 35 participants last post by  Ben Little 
#1 ·
Hello all, I want to build a Honey House that will facilitate 500 Hives Max . Anyone have any good ideas on a floor plan and size of a building without getting too many questions thrown at me. Like type of extraction equipment etc ..

PM me if you actually have experience with planning how to build one please.

Thanks
Ben
 
#2 ·
I run a 500 hive operation and have a few ideas for your honey house. Our facility has five rooms.
Extracting room - this room has two extractors, the uncapping knife, capping dryer, sump, water heater and sink.
Hot room - this room is heated by a water heater that circulates water through pipes in the floor. This room is where I move the honey supers that need to be extracted.
Comb room - This is where I store all my supers after they have been extracted. It is large enough to hold about 1500 medium supers.
Honey tank room - This is where I drain and package my honey.
Storage room - this is where I store misc stuff. Honey containers, tools, equipment to be repaired.
On the side of my honey house is a garage where I park my truck.

In the winter I clean out my hot room and turn it into my workshop to build new equipment and repair old equipment.
 
#4 ·
If you go on cook and beals website they have floor plans for extracting rooms that should give you a general idea, otherwise Jon Bs idea sounds good. I'm not sure how necessary the water heater is in the hot room, we run 1500 hives and usually the summer heat keeps it around 100 degrees though we like to run a space heater on there over night to keep it toasty.
 
#8 ·
Ben: I would design the dimensions of my extracting room to accommodate a system like this should you choose to upgrade in the future.
http://www.cowenmfg.com/pages.asp?pageid=97404
the unit is 19' long and would require at least another 8 to 10' on each end to fit comfortably. It is very important to spend some time strategically placing floor drains as well taking equipment placing and traffic flow into account. I would agree that a room with a heated floor directly adjacent to your extracting room would be a requirement as well. Make sure all doorways are wide and tall enough to accommodate whatever type of forklift you may choose to use in the future.
 
#9 ·
Im in the process of building myself. Here are just a few ideas that I have put into my facility.

Windows, lots of natural light
I dont like walls, so I designed a large extraction room, and a large hot room which doubles as a wintering shed.
12 foot ceiling
tin walls and ceiling inside and out
floor wash drains or gutter. I chose a U drain gutter system because of its simplicity, hidden features and self cleaning option
I have water service in the building, hot and cold.
Fully serviced waste water and sewer system.

I built in an office/employee lunch room that will be finished with drywall. It allows a place for workers or visitors to gather and do business without having to be forced to enter the actual processing facility. Im finishing this area with drywall to add a touch of professionalism to the facility. My operation will be centralized in this area.

I have a loading pad on the outside of my honey house to load and unload my truck, with my lift truck, which has direct access to my honey house. This way I can have a clean pad and not track in dirt from outside as I load and unload my boxes.

I do not store any of my boxes in my buildings but rather store all my boxes in dry van semi trailers. I have a loading dock next to the honey house for convenient access. Semi trailers are cheap storage solutions and they are relocatable. I will store my boxes away from my facility to help minimize the risk of fire.
 
#13 ·
Im in the process of building myself. Here are just a few ideas that I have put into my facility.

Windows, lots of natural light
I like natural light as well but, personally, I wouldn't overdo the windows. If you dont clean them regularly they can get unsightly in a hurry. The windows in our extracting room get cleaned daily during extracting season and they still never seem to look clean.
 
#10 ·
At the end of the day...once you've decided on the minimum number of rooms and their minimum dimensions....double both.
I have a one room 14x20 honey house. I extract from about 200 hives. Once the honey is extracted and bottled I have to store it elsewhere. I could handle another 100 hives if needed.
Do you have 500 hives today? Do you plan to store the bottled or barrelled honey for an extended period of time in this same house? I know you didn't want a load of questions but....way too many variables to throw out blanket solutions....in my opinion.
 
#12 ·
Thanks for all the ideas , it is hard choice to make. I'm just having a hard time trying to get the project started . L O L
I don't know how much the project will cost , I guess the main thing would be getting a price on the construction of the overall build once I decide how big to make it for now , with the capabilities of making it larger as time goes on.

I need to think a lot on what I need , rather than what I want. So if you smell smoke , that's just me thinking : )

Ben
 
#30 · (Edited)
Ben, Maxant is a good brand. I just wouldn't waste your time and money on they're jr spinner. If you are going to be in the business you might as well buy the sr. spinner. I own 2 myself and have been running them for over 20 years.
I built a new honey house last year and the only equipment that I moved from the old one was the maxant spinners, and my maxant bottling tanks.:thumbsup:
 
#19 ·
I just built one last year that sounds similar to Ian's but I did my extraction room with no windows whatsoever... I just stick a broom handle under one overhead door to keep it up a hair and kill all the lights at the end of the day and it works like a giant bee escape... If you get the vapour proof T5 lights a pressure washer takes the bee crap off them pretty quickly. It's sort of a pain not being able to see out sometimes so I've been thinking about a dinger similar to what you'd find at a gas station to let me know if someone shows up. I'd definitely build big... It's amazing how much stuff a person accumulates that really can't sit outside
 
#24 ·
Ben - my point was that the area of wax/honey separation needs improvement. I have worked with an early Cook and Beales, and was not overly impressed. It functioned, but was noisy. I have also worked with a Fager wax press. It was quiet, but not so efficient. I view it as an area for research. A "black box" that is quiet, cheap to run, and delivers clean unburnt honey, liquid wax, and dirt. But hey, when your crazy, it is easy to dream....

Crazy Roland
 
#25 ·
I am just getting to know my new C&B seperator. So far I am fairly pleased. It is fairly quiet and is claimed to have only about 1% honey loss. That seems about right from my first impression. The kicker on a system like this, though, is a heat exchanger is needed to boost the inflowing honey temp to 100 to 105 degrees. Honey exiting the spinner is clean and clear. The "kicker" is with the heat exchanger, heater and extra pump required it gets to be a pretty expensive setup with fairly high operating costs.
 
#26 ·
i agree with Jim .We had a sump and mixer to capture the mixed honey and cappings, then a Moyno pump, heat exchanger, and then C+B spinner. The pump and mixer where the source of most problems, float switch would stick, pump would jam with a broken frame, etc.


For grins, take a known weight of spun cappings, and soak in a known wieght of water. Measure the specific gravity of the water and double check your one percent. We went away from the C+B because it was overwhelming the septic system.

Crazy Roland
 
#28 ·
Okay , not to get off track here , but I want to design the honey house so I can make use of as much space as possible. If I were to expand my operation later on , that is fine , but I am trying to make do with a certain number of hives 100-200 until I can handle more with my lovely assistant Amanda : ) . I am working a regular 8-5 job mon-fri and I can only do so much work after I get home and on weekends . My regular job is hard enough right now I am worn out at the end of the day , but I love working with Bees so much , I think I could do it full time if possible.

So I don't mind putting good money into the operation and having a nice place to extract and process the honey and hive products properly. I just don't have 200,000. dollars to soak into it : ) maybe half of that at my borrowing ability right now.

I have a piece of land behind my house where I can put a large building , so that is not a big deal finding a place to put it.

So here is what I would like to know. What do you all recommend for a cappings spinner or a way to get the honey out of the wax cappings?
Uncapping tank ? or just uncap right into the spinner ?

All I have right now is a Maxant 1400p 20 frame extractor and I need some help figuring out what is needed to process honey for an operation my size for now , with the ability to expand the extraction line without having to buy all new machines and wasting my money buying smaller equipment to start with now. Is this even possible to do ?

Kind of a hard question I know , but I believe in buying things right the first time if possible.

Thanks for putting up with all my stupid questions

Ben
 
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