Best honey extractor

[biglad]

Hi all I have 5 hives with suppers on . It's my second year . First for honey what's the best extractor for small 5 hive hobbyist cheers all Neil

 

[VEG]

Lots of threads on here about extractors have a search and read through them. There is no best one it depends on what you want to spend.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Hi all I have 5 hives with suppers on . It's my second year . First for honey what's the best extractor for small 5 hive hobbyist cheers all Neil

Depends on how good the average yield is on your five hives

In london we can get 60-80lbs plus per hive, more in some years

So with five hives that's 300- 400lbs of honey.... say 14x30lb buckets or 18 supers or circa 180 frames to uncap (assuming some partial filled)
l
With a nine frame electric radial extractor that is 20 spins, a four frame electric radial that 45 spins and almost impossible with a 3 frame manual tangential as each spin requires two reversal of the frames so three spins ..180 manual spins

but if instead of four or five supers . your average if only one capped super per hive then a manual will do....

 

[hedgerow pete]

i shall get in before someone else does,

some one will always be a clever whatsit and say use the club one, but since i am not apart of a club as the one local to me wants shooting into outerspace, twice as they are useless plonkers

i would suggest for a newbie you try for a manual every time, yes if you happen to have a grand spare then buy an stainless electric radial.

a manual plastic two frame extractor will do you perfectly fine for now. just dont waituntill you have 10 full supers to empty, pull two full cappped frames out once a week when you do your inspections and spin them and return them or get two spare frames to swap with.

a two frame extractor will take you once you have a rythym about 10 mins to uncap, spin and return to super two frames, many can do it a lot quick some people go slower, so a box of 11 frames in a super with tea breaks included is about an hour or so work

i have been helping a newbie out today with a plastic two frame and a four frame extractor and we have done 12 supers (9frames) and we have done the whole lot including filtering and bucket storage and 50 bottles in about 6 hours

 

[hedgerow pete]

just had a quick hunt around as i dont really keep up with the prices, your looking at £220 for a plastic table top extractor. so try to borrow someones this year to get you by, try starting a can i please borrow thread here and see what happens

i personally would not buy one from any uk based firm as i love europe for most big purchases, i brought a 12 frame manual stainless extractor from germany including postage from germany ebay for £600 thats roughly a third less than the uk prices, and to buy the electric motor one is £750 still £400 ish cheaper than the uk

you can always try the second hand route but since we all went stainless about 10 years ago it had the market killed off of old machines all you get now are people leaving or upgrading suppling that market

 

[Chris58]

As we have only 2 hives and have yet to get more than 5 kilos per year from them, (been a couple of bad years) but I would love to have someone invent/create a 2 frame plastic extractor for less than £50!. I'm afraid we're not even Bees on a Budget, more like Bees on a Shoestring, but slowly getting there.

 

[msimmonds]

Hmm, for such a small scale operation, a 2 frame extractor would serve you well. I recommend the VIVO BEE-V002 2 Frame Stainless Steel Honey Extractor.

 

[fatshark]

I suspect (s)he's scaled up by now ... the thread is 4 years old.
A two frame extractor for 5 hives? In a good year (s)he would look like Charles Atlas.
I'm assuming the one you recommend is manual.

 

[Webby]

I got a two frame extractor for just over £100 on Amazon. Works great but I only have two hives at the moment, probably getting a third. The best one is the most expensive one you can afford.

 

[wessexmario]

One tip I can offer is check those advertised as tangential only which have a large square open basket that may also hold the frames radially. For some reason radial are almost double the price for the same size drum tangential, even though the difference in construction materials is negligible.

The square cages are often capable of both orientations, either without or very minor modification. I discovered this with my one, advertised as 4 super/brood frame tangential, it actually takes 8 super frames radially without modification. The equivalent radial version of the same make/diameter was 50% dearer at the time I bought mine.

This one is similar to the one I have: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/201983999979
They're often advertised as tangential only, but beware that some have a triangular or rectangular basket which doesn't have the same available space for radial use.

 

[Noddy]

Easibee do a 6 frame manual radial extractor for £275