Honey Extractor
Lexikon
The honey extractor is the central piece of equipment for honey harvesting.
The honey extractor is the central piece of equipment for honey harvesting. It uses centrifugal force to release the liquid honey from combs that have already been uncapped, without destroying the comb's delicate wax structure. The combs hang in a rotating basket, the honey is flung against the wall of the extractor and runs from there through a drain valve into sieves and collecting vessels.
The main distinction is between tangential and radial extractors. In a tangential extractor, only one side of the comb faces outward at a time, so after spinning the first side the combs must be turned by hand. Radial extractors hang the combs like the spokes of a wheel, so both sides are emptied at the same time, which saves time, especially with larger numbers of colonies. Self-turning extractors combine both principles by automatically reversing the direction of rotation.
For day-to-day work it is essential that the combs are sufficiently warm and not too cold before extracting, otherwise the honey flows out less easily and the cell walls can break. A common beginner's mistake is spinning too fast right from the start: if full speed is reached immediately, the full combs bulge and press through, the wax structure breaks, and the comb has to be rebuilt from scratch. That is why extracting starts slowly, the speed is then increased, and the comb is turned in between.