# Extractor



## Rob30 (Nov 2, 2004)

My wife has brought up keeping bees now several times. I think with some effort I could build or buy some hives. However on the processing side, I am not sure how to make an extractor. Are there some other hard to find pieces that I will need?


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## Michael Bush (Oct 26, 2008)

IMO I would not buy an extractor nor make one. If I found a used one cheap I would buy it. Normally I'm not shy about saying things my own way, but Richard Taylor said this so well, I will not even attempt to do better. For more of his wisdom check out "The Comb Honey Book". 

Richard Taylor on Comb Honey: 

"A comb honey beekeeper really needs, in addition to his bees and the usual apiary equipment and tools, only one other thing, and that is a pocket knife. The day you go into producing extracted honey, on the other hand, you must begin to think not only of an extractor, which is a costly machine used only a relatively minute part of the year, but also of uncapping equipment, strainers, settling tanks, wax melters, bottle filling equipment, pails and utensils galore and endless things. Besides this you must have a place to store supers of combs, subject to damage by moths and rodents and, given the nature of beeswax, very subject to destruction by fire. And still more: You must begin to think in terms of a whole new building, namely, a honey house, suitably constructed, supplied with power, and equipped.... 

"All this seems obvious enough, and yet time after time I have seen novice beekeepers, as soon as they had built their apiaries up to a half dozen or so hives, begin to look around for an extractor. It is as if one were to establish a small garden by the kitchen door, and then at once begin looking for a tractor to till it with. Unless then, you have, or plan eventually to have, perhaps fifty or more colonies of bees, you should try to resist looking in bee catalogs at the extractors and other enchanting and tempting tools that are offered and instead look with renewed fondness at your little pocket knife, so symbolic of the simplicity that is the mark of every truly good life." 

Expense of making wax 

Richard Taylor on the expense of making wax: 

"The opinion of experts once was that the production of beeswax in a colony required great quantities of nectar which, since it was turned into wax, would never be turned into honey. Until quite recently it was thought that bees could store seven pounds of honey for every pound of beeswax that they needed to manufacture for the construction of their combs--a figure which seems never to have been given any scientific basis, and which is in any case quite certainly wrong. The widespread view that if the combs were used over and over, through the use of the honey extractor, then the bees would be saved the trouble of building them and could convert the nectar thus saved into honey, was only minimally correct. A strong colony of bees will make almost as much comb honey as extracted honey on a strong honey flow. The advantage of the extractor, in increasing harvests, is that honey stored from minor flows, or gathered by the bees over many weeks of the summer, can easily be extracted, but comb honey cannot be easily produced under those conditions." 

You can crush and strain if you want liquid honey:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm#crushandstrain


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

If you really want to, there are various plans online for building your own extractor using mostly common items.

Personally, I've cozied up to a few nearby beekeepers who own extractors and borrow theirs.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

While an extractor is not needed by processing honey as cut comb or the crush and strain method. It does cut down on the amount of honey a person can harvest from a hive as all new comb has to be built to store the honey in.

Joining a club is a good resource for getting honey extracted. The club may have a extractor they loan or rent to club members. There may also be club members who will loan an extractor or rent it or even do the extractining on shares.

They you can always buy if money isn't to tight.
Just saw a brand new 2 frame stainless in either dadant or brushy mountian for less that $200.00 they both have web catalogs.
You might also look at the glory bee honey web site.

 Al


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