[Tim KS]

I bought a used two frame extractor off Ebay. It seems to be in good shape, but came with no, zero, zip instructions. How fast should I crank & how long should I crank? I know, I know....just fast & long enough to get the honey out, but I'd like an idea of what to expect. :s

 

[tacomabees]

Some of the "how fast" and "how long" will come with experience.... Some of it will depend on the temperature when you do your extracting. If it's 75+ or 90...

If it's reasonably warm (75), then I'll start out slow, make sure everything is balanced for a couple of minutes, give it a quick check and then increase the RPM to something that feels like medium....and go for another 5+ or until I check the frame and it seems pretty light.

It will take a few frames to sort it out, but the only thing you lose will be a little time in learning.....if it's 90 out and your spinning, you'll tell you're going to fast when you pull out the frame and you see you've spun off chunks of wax...

I am assuming that you are working with drawn plastic foundation and not full wax foundation...if it's full wax, basically the same deal, just be a little more careful with everything...

 

[Michael Bush]

Always start slow and work your way up as the weight of the combs decreases. At the end you can go as fast as you like. Temperature affects everything. Warmer temps make the wax soft and they make the honey run.

 

[crofter]

It will depend on type of extractor. I see no one yet referring to reversing frames! With a tangential and newish wired wax foundation and certainly foundationless, you will want to crank slowly to spin about half of the honey out of the outside of the frame, then flip frame and spin all of the honey out of the second side, flip again and spin to completely empty the other side. In other words, the honey on the inside of the frame cannot get out and if you spin it as fast as you can, the weight may burst the wax. I think you can judge the speed a fair bit by watching how the honey is coming out of the drain.

 

[Tim KS]

Well I give up trying to post a picture of the results of my first ever extraction. I pulled a half dozen medium frames of capped honey from a super on my strongest hive today (the other four weren't capped yet). We got about a gallon & a half of the best tasting honey I've ever extracted.... ....the ONLY honey I've ever extracted.

I'm going to return the empties to the super tomorrow and hope for a refill + later this fall.

Thanks for responses.....extraction actually went better than I expected.