Which honey extractor is best for your apiary
Honey extractor - special equipment for pumping honey, an important part of the inventory in any apiary. Some models are adapted for private households, with a small amount hives, but there are also professional ones, which are equipped with large beekeeping farms.
Description and principle of operation of the honey extractor
The construction is quite simple, since first of all it is:
- stainless steel or galvanized steel tank;
- cassettes on the rotor, in which frames with honeycombs are placed.
Honeycombs with honey, before placing in the honey extractor, should be printed with a special knife or fork.
The process of forcing honey consists of several stages:
- frames with honeycombs are inserted into the drum;
- when the drum rotates, honey flows down;
- a special pocket or a container placed in a honey extractor is filled;
- the resulting product is poured into a clean and dry container.
Pumping honey with a honey extractor makes the work of the beekeeper easier. Not only is time saved, but the honeycomb remains intact and can be reused.
Honey extractor and its popular types
Any type of honey extractor is based on actions and processes that rotate the frames at a given speed.
Basically, devices are classified according to the peculiarities of the location of the frames, while power indicators and other parameters can be taken into account.:
- radial - frames are placed in the working body along its radius;
- chordial - cassettes are fixed along the chords of the body (installed at right angles to the radius);
- tangential - combine the advantages of the first two types, cassettes are located at an angle of 35 ° to the body.
The use of radial honey extractors allows you to process up to 16 half frames in one load. In chordial, no more than four can be installed.
But still, it is not so easy to determine which honey extractors are better radial or chordial. You will have to take into account many factors that affect the process of extracting honey from bee combs.
Reversible chordial honey extractors have additional capabilities that differ from other devices. For example, at the moment of stopping, the cassettes in them are always in their original position. When rotating, they constantly turn over, which allows you to extract honey alternately, from both sides, without pulling out the frames. When distilling honey using traditional chordial honey extractors, you will have to manually change the position of the cassettes.
The advantages of a horizontal honey extractor are its efficiency even at low speeds. This is due to the fact that not only centrifugal forces act on the cells inside, but also a number of others. For example, the forces of gravity and those that occur in laminar Venturi flow have a large impact on productivity. Due to the air flow between the honeycomb and some partial vacuum caused by it, a suction effect is observed.
Therefore, the process of pumping honey out of one bookmark can be completed even in two minutes. But sometimes, depending on its viscosity and temperature, it still takes a little longer. This quick distillation of honey ensures high productivity and lowers the overall cost of producing a valuable product.Up to 40 store frames (the height of which is less than 160 mm) or 20 Dadan frames are processed in one bookmark. It is not at all difficult to drain the pumped out honey into a prepared container, you just have to tilt the body slightly.
How to choose the right honey extractor
In addition to the differences due to the type of device and the features associated with the methods of installing the frames, honey extractors are subdivided according to the method of rotating the frames:
- Hand-held devices are one of the cheapest devices, but their maintenance requires some physical training, since it takes a lot of effort to independently rotate the handle. If the honey extractor is equipped with a belt drive, then the handle is placed on top, and it should be rotated in the horizontal plane, in contrast to the geared one, in which the rotation occurs in the vertical plane.
- Electrically driven - with which you can adjust the rotation time and speed. In such extractors, the frame cassettes must be unrolled manually. The rotor rotates with a 12V or 220V electric motor.
- The automatic honey extractor is a modern model with self-unfolding cassettes. Equipped with 12 / 220V inventory.
Each type of honey extractor has its own advantages and disadvantages. To choose the right device, the buyer will need to consider not only their own capabilities, but also the characteristics of the beekeeping farm.
Of great importance for obtaining a high-quality, healthy product is the material from which the honey extractor is made:
- the cheapest option is a galvanized steel drum;
- average cost - with an aluminum drum;
- expensive - made of stainless food steel, grades AISI 201 or 304.
A tank made of plastic, lightweight and non-toxic material, can quickly break. You need to work with such a honey extractor as carefully and carefully as possible.
Before buying, you must definitely find out what the elements of the centrifuge are made of - parts, cassettes, bearings, rotor. The type of honey extractor should correspond to the number of bee colonies in the apiary. And if there are not many of them, you should not purchase a large and powerful device.
If the number of hives on the farm:
- less than 10 - choose a chordial honey extractor for two or three cassettes, which will have to be rearranged independently;
- up to 20 - devices for 3 frames, with rotating cassettes are suitable;
- up to 30 - you should pay attention to the equipment of the radial type, powered by an electric drive, which has from 4 or more cassettes.
Small honey extractors without a drive should be used by novice beekeepers who have several hives on their farm.
Honey pumping speed
Timely pumping of honey increases the honey yield. This process must proceed quickly, especially if the bribe is still ongoing. Therefore, it is necessary to correctly select the speed of the honey extractor when pumping honey, so as not to reduce productivity and not affect the profitability of the farm. When rotating the drum by hand, its speed should be approximately 160-180 rpm. If the device is powered by an electric drive - up to 300 rpm.
In chordial honey extractors operating at high speed, the combs are often bent and cracked. Therefore, honey is pumped out not in one go, but in three. Half of the entire volume, on one side of the frames at low rotor speeds, approximately 50-100 rpm. And then they turn them and increase the speed to 180 rpm.
Pumping honey in radial honey extractors powered by an electric drive is carried out simultaneously from both sides of the combs. There can be more than 50 of them in the rotor. The rotation is gradually accelerating and can reach 300 rpm.
Drive manufacturers
It is necessary to evaluate not only the manufacturer of the device, his reputation and the quality of the goods he produces, but also the company that manufactured the electric drive.
There are several reasons for this:
- if the electronics are produced by an enterprise located in another region or country, then in case of malfunctions, it will have to be returned for replacement or repair, which will interrupt the work in the apiary for some time;
- the cost of an imported drive may be overstated;
- installed programs on which the speed regulation of a fully automatic process or the stepwise execution of a task depends;
Some drives can be rearranged to other similar devices.
Remote control selection
Even high-quality devices with buttons, with frequent use, may not meet expectations and quickly become unusable. Residues of honey and wax, propolis and other beekeeping products can unexpectedly appear on the surface of the control panel and spoil it, clog into the smallest holes, and disrupt the operation of toggle switches.
Touchpads are also not always suitable, especially if the work is done by one person, without an assistant. To change the regime or complete the process, he will have to wash his hands or take off his gloves with extreme caution. It is best to use practical remotes with pseudo-buttons printed on the film.
Honey extractor: equipment and functionality features
Devices on sale are not always equipped with the necessary elements and parts. Some do not have a lid. The use of such a honey extractor is unprofitable and impractical. Drops of honey forcefully fly out of the tank and can stain everything nearby. Losses when processing a large number of frames can be significant.
You can find out which of the honey extractors is better by the presence or absence of legs and a stand, since sometimes they can be sold separately. If a ball valve is included in the kit, it is worth trying to replace it, as it significantly reduces the speed of draining the resulting product. Working with the honey distilling device should be comfortable.
Therefore, when purchasing it, even novice beekeepers should treat their purchase with maximum attention and check if there is an opportunity to somehow facilitate their work, for example:
- fastening the legs to the floor surface - as in the accelerated rotation process, the honey extractor can swing;
- the shape of the legs - their exorbitant height can negatively affect stability, and narrow supporting heels can damage the floor covering;
- a large honey pocket will allow the honey to settle even during pumping, which means fewer filters are required;
- fixing the device at an angle to drain the residues honey, otherwise the assistant will have to hold it.
If you buy a honey extractor in the fall or winter, you can save a lot of money, since the prices for this equipment are going down at this time.