sorry, it was a busy day! Here goes with the way I do things! I use a roll of lino which I roll out across the floor. After use it can be taken outside and washed down easily. Remember that honey is soluble in water so have a bowl of warm water ready and an old towel that is used for this purpose only as it will get stained. get all your gear ready before you start doing anything. I put my extractor on castors as mentioned but I have raised it to a comfortable height that also allows me to fit a honey bucket underneath so you don't have to keep lifting to drain off the honey. The castors stop the 'walking'. I have also devised a tipping method to make the pouring easy. It is a big piece of wood that fits under one side and a belt to stop the extractor from tipping and falling! I extract the day I remove the boxes from the hive while the honey is still liquid. I have a tray to which I have attached a piece of wood with a screw sticking point upwards. I put one end of the top bar on the screw and hold the other end. That allows access to both sides without lifting or turning. Just a quick swivel and both sides are visible. I use a hot air gun. The best one I have found is a modelling hot air gun used by modellers to shrink plastic onto the body of model planes. It comes with a direction nozzle and has two heat settings. With the frame on the nail start at the top and keep the hot gun moving quickly. You will see all the dry cappings pop open. They can splatter so don't do it near a wall!!. Move in a downwards motion so you are chasing any melting wax. It takes a few seconds for each side. I keep an electric hot knife to one side for any cappings that have soaked in honey as they will not pop open. (It is important to transport frames carefully to try and avoid this). You will have hardly any honey run off or wax after a whole box of frames. Nothing at the end to melt down. Put the frames in the spinner and spin the honey off, emptying into a honey bucket as it fills towards the bottom of the frames in the spinner. I use a double sieve only. to clean up I simply scrape the sides of the spinner with a flexible silicon kitchen spatula and then wipe the bottom of the tap and take the whole thing into the shower where I use warm water and the shower hose to clean it. Take care not to lose the ball bearing down the plug hole. I leave the honey in the bucket for 24 hours and jar up immediately. Clean the bucket the same way.
There is an art to using the hot air gun but practise makes perfect. Just don't linger in one place too long!
Once finished role up the lino and take it outside for a hose down. Keep it for the next lot!
I like to extract in small amounts of two boxes at a time but that is a personal thing for me to get different honeys during the season. I also use a refractometer frequently throughout the extraction and when jarring up. Better safe than sorry.
Hope this helps
