Brush uncapper

[Haughton Honey]

Has anyone on here got experience of a brush uncapping machine?

I ask because I'm sick to death of steel blades dipped in hot water and pretty inefficient heated uncapping knives.

I'm thinking about throwing some money at a 'pwoper' uncapping machine ans Sw***s brush uncapper caught my eye for quickly dealing with all manner of super frames (i.e. unevenly capped etc).

 

[rockdoc]

I've tried the hot knife trick and abandoned it fast. I have now consistently used a simple scraping fork ( a few £ on fleabay) and have never looked back. Its quick, efficient and causes little damage to those precious drawn combs. The only drawback is very little wax to collect.

 

[Andy Duff]

Fed up with knives then use a fork, much better, I even sharpened the tines on ours. uncapping fork that is

 

[Haughton Honey]

I recently used an uncapping fork and pretty much scraped the cappings off the surface of the comb....however, there was a large amount of fine cappings material/bits thrown off and left in the extractor, which was a pain when it came to filtering.

I was kind of looking a 'one stop shop' solution

 

[Andy Duff]

I recently used an uncapping fork and pretty much scraped the cappings off the surface of the comb....however, there was a large amount of fine cappings material/bits thrown off and left in the extractor, which was a pain when it came to filtering.

I was kind of looking a 'one stop shop' solution

Let it settle in the extractor, run it into a settling tank and let it settle. WAIT a couple of days or more or less depending on the room temperature. Patience is a virtue, take off the honey/cappings goop and give it to the bees.

If you are after quick, cheep and easy honey, try the supermarket.

 

[Haughton Honey]

If you are after quick, cheep and easy honey, try the supermarket.

Noooooo......I'm quite capable of uncapping and extracting. I'm just trying to improve my operation as the number of hives that I have increases to commercial levels!

 

[Andy Duff]

Noooooo......I'm quite capable of uncapping and extracting. I'm just trying to improve my operation as the number of hives that I have increases to commercial levels!

NOOOOOOOO- you will end up either-
driven bonkers by the bees
or have more honey than you can sell locally to the few people who love honey and end up giving it away. Keep it a limited supply and sell it at a premium price.

 

[m100]

I recently used an uncapping fork and pretty much scraped the cappings off the surface of the comb....however, there was a large amount of fine cappings material/bits thrown off and left in the extractor, which was a pain when it came to filtering.

The very fine highly dispersed cappings and the significantly reduced volume of cappings compared to using an uncapping knife is the reason why I use an uncapping fork and not a knife. The knife only gets used to even up fully extracted combs or combs subsequently cleaned up by the bees..

Even after a long extracting session there is very little wax to deal with and no bucket of chopped off cappings oozing with honey that needs further handling or mechanical extraction.

Filtered though a 200 or 350 micron nylon filter with a large surface area 40kg of honey typically leaves around 0.5kg of fine grained wax that simply needs a quick rinse in a stainless two stage filter under a cold tap before packing into a suitable plastic pot and placing iin the microwave to melt.

 

[tidymeup]

Surly a heat gun is the easiest way, just flash it over the capping's and your done. It's rather cheap to and quicker then most methods mentioned.

 

[Poly Hive]

I used a cold carving knife for 80 colonies with no issues at all. KISS

PH

 

[BDCS]

It was my first time this year but I used the heat gun and worked well

 

[protheroe]

I used a cold carving knife for 80 colonies with no issues at all. KISS

PH

definitely my favourite uncapping tool

 

[mbc]

I used a cold carving knife for 80 colonies with no issues at all. KISS

PH

A fork is also useful for the dipps but the knife is much quicker on straight comb.

 

[Tom Bick]

The heat gun works well for me (not perfect) but then this year half of the frames have been capped wet so a mix of heat gun and fork this year very frustrating.

I can understand the need to make extraction simple as it’s the least exciting part to beekeeping to me and although my set up is simple as I like it I am thinking about a larger electric extractor next year.

Try Oxfordbee from this thread he has or had one http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6238&highlight=brush+uncapping

 

[george]

We use a Swi nty brush uncapper and it gets through about 400 + supers each yr(not this one) .
It works well but did need a new brush after 2 yrs and the cost was shocking so we had one made up from elsewhere .
It does make a nice job as it takes the top of the capping off but little honey with it . Saves cleaning up the cappings at a later date .

G

 

[Haughton Honey]

Thanks George - interesting.

And thanks to everyone else for their viewpoints.