substitute for capping knife?

They make non-electric knives with an offset handle and they work pretty good. If you need the heat, you can dip it in hot water. I started with an ancient (actually, antique) knife just like that. If it's sharp, it does the trick. When I only have a few frames, I scratch the caps off with a wide fork or a scratcher made to do that. I've heard of people using a serrated bread knife. All should work just fine. When I have a lot of frames, the heated knife goes faster....no question but it's not necessary.

garlicbee said:

What can you use instead of a electric capping knife, hoping to put that expense off till next year?

Click to expand...

The hooked end of your hive tool. Assuming you have one of those.

I use a fork and or a decapping fork, no knives here yet. The kids use te capping fork and i generally use the regular fork to break open the cappings. Works for us.

IMO, a really sharp serrated bread knife with a long blade works better than an electric knife. Also, you don't burn any honey that way. You still need a cappings scratcher.

Now I've only done my first harvest, but.... a serrated bread knife worked just fine.

great thanks, will be ready to go as having capping scratcher and bread knife

I use one of those ginsu knives from the eighties. some of you can probably remember the commercials cut this aluminum can and still sharp enough to slice a tomato.

serrated bread knife works great for me, bought one at a yard sale for 50 cents just so the wife would stop complaining that she could'nt find hers Jim

a capping fork works just fine and even cheaper way is a regular fork.

I like to use an electric serrated fillet knife. I use it for fishing and it works great on capped frames. Have a short video but not sure how to attach to this reply. Please pm me if you would like to see.

Lifting up and away with a decapping fork give's me pleasure when the wire screen hardly get's
plugged with wax.


http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c97/fruitnut_/Honeybee/IMG_4795_1_2_1.jpg

I saw a You-tube video a while back where some chaps were using a hair dryer, of maybe a hot air paint stripper to melt open the caps. It seemed to work very well in the video. I would probably work better on white (dry) capped honey but they didn't seem to bother with checking. Anyone out there ever try this?

How about the Hackler Honey Punch:

John Seets said:

A number of people have contacted me via private e-mail regarding source contact for the Honey Punch. Thought I'd post it here for everyone's convenience:

Contact Clyde Hackler at 360-592-3108 or e-mail: [email protected].

Thanx.

Click to expand...

Just a quick note for everyone Plastools contact info has changed Contact Jeff Hackler , [email protected] and 360-739-8748 www.plastools.com for the Hackler Honey Punch

http://www.radacutlery.com/Category.asp?SRCH_CATEGORY=Cat09

I've got the R112 10 inch bread knife. It's serated and cuts through the oldest black comb and pollen deposits. If I'm not careful, I'll even trim the wood on my frames!

Unheated. Works great.

Grant
Jackson, MO www.maxhoney.homestead.com