Honey Extractor
Lexikon
The honey extractor is the central piece of equipment in the honey harvest.
The honey extractor is the central piece of equipment in the honey harvest. It uses centrifugal force to release the liquid honey from the previously uncapped combs without destroying the delicate wax structure of the comb. The combs hang in a rotating basket, the honey is thrown against the wall of the extractor, and from there it runs through a honey gate into strainers and collecting containers.
A distinction is made above all between tangential and radial extractors. In a tangential extractor only one side of each comb faces outward, so that after the first side has been partly extracted, the combs have to be turned by hand. Radial extractors hold the combs like the spokes of a wheel, so that both sides are emptied at the same time, which saves time above all with larger numbers of colonies. Self-reversing extractors combine both principles by changing the direction of rotation automatically.
For everyday work it is crucial that the combs are sufficiently warm before extraction and not too cold, since otherwise the honey flows out less well and the cell walls can break. A common beginner's mistake is starting too fast: if full speed is reached immediately, the full combs are pushed through, the wax structure breaks, and the comb has to be drawn out anew. That is why extraction starts slowly, then the speed is increased and the comb is turned in between.