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Author Topic: Extractor regrets? just wondering if anyone ever bought one wished they didn't?  (Read 2939 times)

Offline flyingbrass

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Extractor regrets? just wondering if anyone ever bought one wished they didn't? I've heard people get out of bees because of the honey. I got about 20 hives and was going to do crush and strain this year again. I would like to know if anyone ever got an extractor and wish they had not gotten it?

Offline Kathyp

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i don't use mine every year, but when i have had really good years, i have been glad i had it.  if you have doubts maybe buy one that is not so expensive.  i got mine on craigslist.  didn't pay that much for it and am pretty sure i could sell it for what if cost me.

if you are happy with crush and strain....only down side is that they have to rebuild the comb every year, but that's not such an issue for many.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Finski

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I have had 20 hives 45 years. You are out of mind if you are going to crush and strain.

You will loose 50% of your yield and you have continuous lack of combs.

I have  6 frame electric extractor. I uncap the frames with electric knife at same speed what extractors handles  combs. I have time too to clear out sieves.  in 4 hours I can handle 200 kg honey. That is maximum speed.

20 hives and 60-80 kg per hive means 1500 kg a year.  50 kg in a hour means  30 hour extracting and sieving.  in autumn last extractions are heavy job because i must put hives in wintering condition at same time.

If I should take honey with crush and strain. I would sell whole my bee system at once.

I get enough when I crush and strain uncapping stuff.

Beekeeping is very  expensive hobby. No one have afford to loose 50% of his yield with using  stone age methods.

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Offline hankdog1

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Yeah don't mess around and buy a hand crank.  I have a hand crank job didn't buy it myself inherited it after my grandfather passed.  When you bring in a good honey crop you are really going to wish it was electric.
Take me to the land of milk and honey!!!

Offline Finski

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Yes, good honey crop.
My best average crop has been 130 kg.  It is little bit work to get honey from combs but real horror appears, from where to get 100% more customers.

Extracting is only small piece of beekeeping. And it is not interesting. It is pure work and heavy work before honey boxes are in extracting room.  And it is little bit hurry to give new space to incoming flow.

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Offline D Coates

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Got a 2nd hand 2 frame reverseable hand crank Kelly.  Loved it until I got +/-10 hives.  Got serious and bought a 2nd hand Dadant 20 frame electric that was in bad shape.  Completely refurbished it and updated the electronics.  Sold the old one for what I bought it for and haven't looked back.
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Offline L Daxon

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I did crush and strain for a number of years, then talked our bee club into buying a 2 frame hand crank extractor for member use.  Now I do a combination of both.  I think crush and strain is a bit easier if your alternative is a hand crank extractor.  Now I crush the ugly frames but I extract the nicely drawn out frames (except for the really pretty ones I make into comb honey) so I kind of get the best of both worlds and have some frames to reuse and some wax to make into candles, etc. 

I try to just spend one day with the extractor cause it takes time to clean up but w/crush and strain you can do a little or as much as you want whenever you want.
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Offline Michael Bush

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I did crush and strain for 26 years.  I don't regret it at all.  It would not have been worth buying the extractor, nor storing the extractor all of those years when I only had a few hives.   I bought an extractor when I had the money and I was expanding the numbers of hives.  I don't regret buying it either.

    "A comb honey beekeeper really needs, in addition to his bees and the usual apiary equipment and tools, only one other thing, and that is a pocket knife. The day you go into producing extracted honey, on the other hand, you must begin to think not only of an extractor, which is a costly machine used only a relatively minute part of the year, but also of uncapping equipment, strainers, settling tanks, wax melters, bottle filling equipment, pails and utensils galore and endless things. Besides this you must have a place to store supers of combs, subject to damage by moths and rodents and, given the nature of beeswax, very subject to destruction by fire. And still more: You must begin to think in terms of a whole new building, namely, a honey house, suitably constructed, supplied with power, and equipped....

    "All this seems obvious enough, and yet time after time I have seen novice beekeepers, as soon as they had built their apiaries up to a half dozen or so hives, begin to look around for an extractor. It is as if one were to establish a small garden by the kitchen door, and then at once begin looking for a tractor to till it with. Unless then, you have, or plan eventually to have, perhaps fifty or more colonies of bees, you should try to resist looking in bee catalogs at the extractors and other enchanting and tempting tools that are offered and instead look with renewed fondness at your little pocket knife, so symbolic of the simplicity that is the mark of every truly good life."--Richard Taylor, The Comb Honey Book

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Offline Finski

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When you are going to get honey yield, it happens during main flows. In that period every ready comb is badly needed.

3 years ago I measured input with hive on balance. It was rasberry flow then. Flow was huge and bees formed a cluster on outer wall. Hive brought 3,5 kg a day.
Then I took capped honey away and I gove 3 medium boxes empty combs. During next day hive broUght  7 kg a day.  Only way to free combs is extracting.

If you do not extract honey, bees will swarm in heavy flow. It nice to nurse them the whole year, and when it is time to get feed, they escape. That is called "catch and release".


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Offline Finski

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In extracting very importat is an extracting room and the heat systems.
Warm honey come nicele out from combs and it is easy to sieve.
At last arten 30 years I made a room, when I can  control room temperature.
Room is insulated and cut from fron store room.

At the temperature 17C honey process  is impossible.  25C is maximum what I stand, but honey temp is better to bee 35C in extracting.

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Offline 10framer

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if you are going to do it get one that is at least big enough to do what you need it to do now and consider whether you plan on expanding.  a hand crank extractor will wear you out if you have 20 hives.  with a 20 frame extractor you can be done in a day. 
depending on where you are i would think you could expect a minimum of 2 mediums in an average year, that's 180 frames.  if you're cranking them 2 at the time by hand it will take you forever.  how much do you value your time?

Offline Finski

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depending on where you are i would think you could expect a minimum of 2 mediums in an average year,

it is 30 kg honey. If it is so low, you must seach better pasture for hives = migration.

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Offline don2

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If you plan to maintain 10+ colonies, you'll not regret one. you will still be able to crush and strain. ;)d2

Offline Finski

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If you plan to maintain 10+ colonies, you'll not regret one. you will still be able to crush and strain. ;)d2

but idea is in that?

Half of bees yield goes to make new wax and combs.

I cannot understand. 

for example if i get 60 kg honey, I must crush 4 medium boxes combs and bees draw new.

If I get 90 kg per hive, I should crush  60 combs per hive every year.


luckily those hives give only 30 or 40 kg honey a year.

In 90 kg case I will loose money  350 dollars. With 20 hives loss of money is 7000 dollars!

Can you loose 7000 dollars  every year?   AND THE IDEA WAS?
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Offline Highlander

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Finski brings up a point in his posts that has not been addressed, are you doing the honey as a business or as a hobby?  For me, I am just starting out and have two hives. First priority for me was adding pollinators  for my vegetable garden and then honey for personal use and gifts.  I plan on getting a small two frame extractor but will use empty frames for a type of swarm prevention, busy bees don't swarm...in theory.  Plus 20 hives is potentially 400 frames to crush?  Just a novices thoughts.
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Offline Finski

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Plus 20 hives is potentially 400 frames to crush?  Just a novices thoughts.

not even novice.

My hives bring 60-100 kg honey in summer. One medium box has 15 kg honey.
It means 4 full boxes of honey .

But if hive brings 120 kg, it means 8 boxes.

At the end of season boxes are often half full.

But never mind. If you crush yor combs, honey selling will be never your problem.

 
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Offline Finski

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Why a good hive needs so much honey combs?

Bees store ready honey, where moisture is 17%.

But they need 2-3 fold that much combs where they store nectar to rippen. Water content is 80%-70%.  if they have no enough free combs, they fill brood frames with nectar and often they stop foraging and hang outside the hive.

When I transport hives to canola field, I give so much room that bees can hadle 60 kg honey and nectar. It means 5 langstroth boxes or 3 lang+ 4 mediums.

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Offline edward

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Here's a guy who has gone into crush and strain big time.

He has frame less wax sheets in the supers and minces all his harvest

http://www.fribi.se/FriBi/Utvinning.html#12

mvh Edward  :-P

Offline D Coates

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Wow!  I have no idea what the site says but the photos tells the story.
Ninja, is not in the dictionary.  Well played Ninja's, well played...

Offline edward

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Here is some photos of the supers and how they prime them.

http://www.fribi.se/FriBi/Skattlada.html#0

mvh Edward  :-P