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Author Topic: best deal on extractor  (Read 3111 times)

Offline filmmlif

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best deal on extractor
« on: March 19, 2006, 04:09:22 pm »
i have hopes of robbing my two hives this year so i want to invest in an extracting kit....uncapping tub, electric knife, extractor...and saw that dadant sold such a kit (4 frame extractor is what i want). is dadants kit a good deal or does anyone have another suggestion? thnx all.

Offline Jay

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best deal on extractor
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2006, 05:13:59 pm »
If you're going to invest in an extractor (et al), I would encourage you to consider a radial extractor rather than a tangential extractor. Radial extractors extract the frames like spokes on a bicycle wheel rather than a two or a four frame tangential which has one side of the frame facing out. The advantage is that you are extracting both sides at once with a radial extractor which is not only quicker, but easier on your comb (paticularly soft new comb). With a tangential extractor, you need to extract one half of one side, stop and flip the frames around, then extract the second side, then stop and flip the frames around, and then finish the other half of the first side. This is a lot of stopping and flip flopping of the frames so the weight of the honey on the back side of the frame doesn't "blow out" the comb in the frame. Maxant makes a 3-6 extractor which can be a 3-frame tangential or a 6 frame radial extractor. It's a little more money than the smaller 2 or 4 frame tangential models, but if you have more than one or two hives to extract (if you have four hives with three honey supers on top of each, that's 120 frames of honey to extract) the time savings can be dramatic! :D
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Offline filmmlif

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best deal on extractor
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2006, 05:49:15 pm »
i'm using deep frames for surplus honey...most radials don't seem to work with deep frames...and the ones that do are a bit expensive.

Offline Michael Bush

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best deal on extractor
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2006, 07:52:32 pm »
I saved my money and waited 26 years before I bought a 9/18 radial. I've never regretted waiting and never regretted the 9/18 radial.

Richard Taylor said:

"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 no 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."
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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Offline filmmlif

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best deal on extractor
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2006, 08:24:35 pm »
michael, what brand of extractor did you buy? has it been a good one?

Offline Understudy

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best deal on extractor
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2006, 08:29:02 pm »
I was think of some day converting an old washing machine.  Purchase from goodwill cheap. Rewire it  for just the spin function and possible change the pump to a stronger one for honey.  Also make sure it is throughly clean. I don't want honey that tastes like Tide. :)

Sincerely,
Brendhan
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Offline Kris^

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best deal on extractor
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2006, 09:20:50 pm »
Quote from: Michael Bush
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.


Well, I can do our 1/4 acre veggie garden in 20 minutes with the J. Deere 3010 with a 5 foot tiller attachement what used to take me 1/2 a day with a walk-behind tiller.    :)   Of course, we REALLY got the tractor for the forklift funtion.  The accessories were icing.

-- Kris

Offline CraigW

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veggie garden
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2006, 01:06:17 am »
I would think a 1/4 acre, although not that big, is bigger then the garden MB was describing.


Thanks,
Craig
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Offline Michael Bush

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best deal on extractor
« Reply #8 on: March 20, 2006, 09:40:41 am »
>michael, what brand of extractor did you buy? has it been a good one?

I bought the Mann Lake 9/18 radial (powered of course).  I have been very pleased with it.

>I would think a 1/4 acre, although not that big, is bigger then the garden MB was describing.

Actually Richard Taylor was describing it.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
-------------------
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Offline Jerrymac

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« Reply #9 on: March 20, 2006, 12:56:45 pm »
:rainbowflower:  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.   :rainbowflower:

 :jerry:

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