My son helping with extraction

[Greg Peck]

I extracted honey this weekend with the help of my son for about an hour. I ended up getting 110 pounds with 2 full supers yet to extract. I probably would have had more but my son kept eating it :) Here are some pics.


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[JP]

Cute kid Greg, looks like he was enjoying the experience! You didn't eat any of that fresh honey though, right! :-D

[pdmattox]

I like the moterized extractor. Cool pics of you and the next generation of beekeepers. what kind of honey? 

[Kathyp]

great pictures.  i was wondering what to use as a stand for my extractor.  what a great idea!  :-)

[Greg Peck]

No no I did not eat any honey....well some...ok a lot.

The motorized extractor worked out great. I was able to extract the same amount of honey as I had helped a friend extract in the spring in half the time, and I dont have a sore arm from cranking the thing. I did have to add a ball baring under the basket in the plastic bushing hole, just one 3/8 ball. I dont know if mine is just old and the plastic wore out or if it is supposed to be held up by the hand crank mechanism that I took off. At any rate it worked out great. Using an electric uncapping knife really speeds things up too. I also made a super heating device by taking two empty hive bodies and placing a 100 watt light on the floor then putting 2 supers of honey on top. I put a outer cover on and let it sit for a few hours. The temp inside the boxes was 90 degrees and the honey ran very nicely. (If you try this keep an eye on it until you know how hot it gets so you dont melt your bottom frames. I did not have this problem but dont take my word for it.)

This old military box was the perfect size for the extractor to sit on and a bucket to sit right under it. I was thinking about buying a stand but I will not be now as this works just fine.

I had about 20 frames that where basically full but only starting to be capped or half capped so I put them all in 2 supers and put them on my strongest hives. I put the extracted supers on top of these supers with an inner cover between. I check today and the bees had begun capping a lot of it so hopefully next week I will extract 2 more supers.

[Cindi]

Greg, you got one cute little boy there, bet he had the time of his life dipping in the honey.  Mmmm.  good.  Sounds like you have a really cool extracting system going on there.  Good for you.  Have a wonderful day, best of our beautiful life.  Cindi