Extractor

[paul4848]

Hi, going into 2nd year come spring and now need to buy an extractor for 4-6 hives. I know I should buy the best possible, but is there anything electric around £250-300 that you can recommend please to get me going?

 

[GuyNir]

Paul, are you sure this is something you want to do going forward? Maybe borrow from a friend or use the local association for the next year or two?

 

[GuyNir]

Welcome to use my 9 frame electric radial one if you’re close by…

 

[paul4848]

Hi, thank you for quick reply. Yes I’m confident i will definitely continue beekeeping as loving it. I do not plan to have more than say 6 nationals though (see if that pans out ). I have invested a lot in them this year so just didn’t want to spend a whole lot more this coming year…but an extractor is a must as feel bad asking to borrow. Also as not planning on having many hives i wanted a reasonable priced one but also one which will last too. I live in lochmaben and am a member of the dumfries beekeepers association.

 

[drex]

Think you will be lucky to get electric at that sort of price. Extracting from that number of hives with an extractor in that price range will likely be tedious. Think to your future needs, save up, and in meantime borrow from local association. Sorry to be negative but that is the reality

 

[madasafish]

I bought electric used on ebay: travelled 150 miles to collect it from the Fens.
List new £600, paid £330. It was 4 years old, hardly used but needed a good clean.
Works very well - 4 frame radial..Extracted over 500lbs honey this year with it.

(I set up a permanent ebay search which emailed me with results. I bought in March when no-one wants one...) Typical mean Scot.

 

[blackcloud]

Buy quality buy once.
Buy big to future proof the purchase.
I bought a "too big too expensive " machine that paid for itself in no time so don't be afraid as you will struggle with that sort of money unless you take a chance on secondhand

 

[pargyle]

Hi, going into 2nd year come spring and now need to buy an extractor for 4-6 hives. I know I should buy the best possible, but is there anything electric around £250-300 that you can recommend please to get me going?

Vevor do extractors ... they are out of stock of electric ones at present but come the start of the season they will have them for sale again. Not bad quality and within your budget. They are not Lega or Konigin quality but for the amount if use it will get with that number of hives it will do the job and if you get really hooked and get more bees you will sell it for near enough what you paid for it and upgrade .. You will be lucky to get an electric extractor of any size for less than £600 - £700.

https://uk.vevor.com/honey-extracto...ney-spinner-bee-4-8-honeycombs-p_010941451416

 

[Wilco]

Maisemore have a budget range if you can stretch to about £340 there's one advertised as 4 frame electric which works tangentially or radially. Measurements suggest that's conservative.

 

[jinks]

I may have been lucky with the cheap extractor I bought this summer but based on one season's experience I suggest a vevor 4 frame tangential as good value for money. IIRC it was £126 and better quality than I feared at that price. I filed a few sharp edges while assembling. I use national SN4 frames and found I could fit 2 frames in each cage with the top bars adjacent and a rubber band hooked over the the top lugs to ensure they stayed in place. Doing 8 frames at a time meant I quite quickly extracted my 9supers even with the turning over required for the tangential extraction. The gearing was good, everything worked smoothly and frames were well spun. Manual not electric

 

[Paddyg]

I bought an electric extractor from Thornes, but dreadful quality. Uncontrollable and my frames disintegrated as speed uncontrollable. Vevor sell good manual extractors at half the price of Thornes and are made by the same company in China, sourced through Alibaba

 

[Paddyg]

I agree with Jinks…I also now have a Vevor 4 frame manual although the price has shot up! Now about £170!

 

[Nighthaunt]

Might be a touch over budget but I got a Thornes UniMel electric extractor - good price and really pleased with it.

https://www.thorne.co.uk/processing...-unimel-tangential-3-frame-s-s-extractor.html
I’m also looking at maxing out at 6 hives, and I share with another beekeeper so she uses my extractor and we extract with 2 working - makes short work of those piled up supers.