[JDavis]

Starting to gather extraction supplies and my question is about filters.

What micron filter(s) do you suggest? I like the double filter, but the one I have found is 1000 and 500 micron whereas the plastic filters get down to 200 microns. Is that neccessary? How fine do I need to get bee parts, larvae and bits of comb out?

Thanks,

Jeanine

 

[jrhoto]

a 600 micron filter is adequate and works great.

poor valley bee farm

 

[Ski]

You may also want to consider a 5 gallon paint filter bag from Lowes home improvement. IT does a great job of getting all the bee parts and wax bits out.
If you do get one just rinse with water no soap let it dry and use.

 

[laketrout]

600 micron bucket filter here also

 

[cdevier]

We use a stainless steel kitchen strainer from Walmart. It is about the same hole size as window screen. Works great on 5 gallon bucket.
Charlie

 

[LarryBud]

We use both a 600 and (second stage on some honey) a 400 micron. Seem to work just fine keeping the parts out and the pollen in. Clean up with cold water and elbow grease seems to work best-too hot a water and you'll melt any residual wax in the equipment leaving a residue. Your first honey is always the best!

 

[A Novice]

Starting to gather extraction supplies and my question is about filters.

What micron filter(s) do you suggest? I like the double filter, but the one I have found is 1000 and 500 micron whereas the plastic filters get down to 200 microns. Is that neccessary? How fine do I need to get bee parts, larvae and bits of comb out?

Thanks,

Jeanine

It depends on what you want. a 1000 micron filter has 1 mm openings. that is a bit more than 1/32 inch.
It will let through some bee parts, like bits of antennae, but nothing large. I haven't tried this, because I bought a 200 micron filter, and it works OK. So that much is armchair science.

a 200micron filter has openings about .008 inch. It will filter out everything you can see, pretty much. There will still be small bee parts in the honey, but you probably won't be able to see them. Virtually all pollen is smaller than 100 microns, so I don't think the 200 micron filter would remove much if any pollen. That is armchair science also, as I haven't verified that. however, here is a list of pollen sizes for different plants. The list is from the UK, so some of your favorites may or may not be on it, but it gives a pretty good idea of pollen size.
Pollen images in size order (cam.ac.uk) Ragweed for example isn't on the list, as it is not native to Europe. I checked, and ragweed pollen is about 27 microns (or 27 micrometers).
If you click on the Latin names, you can see pictures of the pollen, which is pretty neat.

I use the 200 micron bucket top filter I got from Dadant. It works OK, but is pretty slow. If I am extracting like I'm in a hurry it tends to be a bottleneck. However, mostly it gets plugged with bits of wax which would plug any filter.

Any of these will work. Cheesecloth works too. As long as you get the big parts out, the honey looks and tastes fine.
A window screen will work to get the big parts out, and give you nice looking honey. Or you can just let it sit, and scrape off what rises to the top.

So don't stress about it. I don't think you can mess this one up.

Jon

 

[Akademee]

600 micron is a good balance between flow and filtration. If you go smaller, like 400 or 200, you start running into serious flow problems which can be a major issue depending on how much honey you extract. Usually 200 micron filters are only viable if you heat the honey up to lower its viscosity.

 

[JustBees]

Probably best to filter in stages to help prevent clogging.
Start with window screen size for good flow and this will catch all the big stuff.
Let it settle and skim off the floaters and then filter with the next smaller filter, and so on...
Depends on how far you want to go and how fast the screen clogs.

 

[elmer_fud]

fyi, 7 year old thread

 

[A Novice]

Thanks. It popped up and I didn't check. The pollen pictures are pretty cool though, so not a total loss.

 

[Rader Sidetrack]

The thread was reactivated by a new member, who in later posts, turned out to be a spammer.* And is now dearly departed. However, his first post was in this thread, and it didn't read like a spam post. In hindsight, I suspect that he copied the text from somewhere else.



*The "Spam" button bans the spammer, reports his IP and email to a central database, and removes all of his posts. So if you look back in this thread you won't find his post cuz it's been removed.