The reason I spun the extractor for so long is mostly about the type of honey in the frames and the temperature in the room. This is thick, dark goldenrod honey. It clings! Also, the room I was in was about 65ºF (16C), not a hot summer day. Honey does not flow when it's chilly. I assure you, the extractor was used as designed. The manufacturer showed me how to use it and was the one who told me he runs his for an hour or more. If you are extracting light honey on a hot day, 5 minutes will probably be fine for you. We are in New England and the heat isn't on in the house yet!
So at what point would you say, dang, I wish I got the 20 frame maxant extractor? Trying to decide. You can't do 15 spin cycles if you have to supers you need to extract That'll take forever.
I don't see myself being that big. After three years of trying, I extracted 18 frames. If I get 18 or 20 frames a year, I'm happy. I'm not trying to be a honey producer. If something crazy happens and my bees start making too much honey, needing a larger extractor is not a horrible problem to have. This suits my needs and will be fine for anyone with up to about 15 or so hives.
Hey Vino....you didn't show it in your video, but a super easy way to clean your extractor up after you are done....put it out in your bee yard. Your bees will clean up all the last little bits and clean it for you better than you could!
hyfy1970 no don’t do this!!! Especially with so many hives! They will swarm and attack each other, and promote robbing from other hives! It’s a good way to lose a good chunk of your bees
please tell me then why families i have known who have kept bees for generations do this every year and have never had an issue of robbing that you speak of?
hyfy1970 because they are lucky and have hardy bees. Depending on your area, the risk of another bee hive swooping down to steal honey and kill bees can go up significantly. Putting out a tray of honey invites those wild hives to approach, and can promote swarming, which can also kill a good chunk of your bees. Many beekeeping manuals go over this topic frequently, and I recommend checking some out if you’re curious :)
I do the same. I have a commercial producer near by and their bees show up on mass to clean up or carry away my open feed but they don't try my hives or my nucs. Only thing that surprises me is the small amount of harvest from all these hives in the videos. I've been watching bee videos for about two years and feeding bees pollen and sugar water in my back yard. Lack of bees this spring made me step up. I bought two chalk brood infested weak hives at the end of June because of our month late spring. I fought with them all summer and the take was 260lb plus I took 2 late season 6 frame nuc splits off of them. Supers came off at the beginning of August so I let them keep and back fill the hive with all the fall flow. I am using single box hive management methods I find it easier to manage. They are pretty much ready for winter now. With my hives at peak performance they should have done 200 to 250lbs each according to commercial producers I know. 5 gallons of honey off of this many hives has me scratching my head cause I got almost 4 times that from two hives. I realize it's not about the honey. Matter of fact I didn't care about honey at all. I wanted to do propagation and let the swarms go. my wife wanted honey so I had to scale back my plans to get the hives up to snuff to make her some. I got to make two storming late season 6 frame nucs so next year if all goes well I get to play.
5 лет назад
Ha! That honey extractor doesn't even compare to the Binford 2500 honey extractor! V-4 460hp turbo with a bulletproof Allison transmission 6 speed ...0 to 60 mph in 3.75 secs. HO HO HO HO
That's so cool! For those of us who are unlucky enough to have to purchase our raw honey in a store, we had no clue honey comes in different colors/shades at different times of the year. Same with pollen. Didn't know it came in such a variety of colors either! Thanks for the awesome videos!!
Beautiful honey. I hope next year with the yard expansion you are able to get even more if the spring honey. It's really cool have the two distinctly different seasonal flavors. If you are able to make any breads, Mead or other items with the honey I hope you can video. I can almost smell and taste. Our golden rod is maxed out right now. Can't wait to find a fresh harvest in the next few weeks. Good luck with prepping for the winter. Thx for Tak ng the time to make the vids.
One of the beekeepers where I used to live would rent his bees out on certain flower or fruit crops, so that's what the honey came from, and it was extracted, and my favorite was thistle honey, so light and never tasted any other honey like it! I'm so glad you got a good honey harvest this year!
Congratulations. Enjoy your honey. I also use the Maxant 3100 and love it. I don't spin nearly as long as you- only 10-15 minutes at most. I also put the extractor and cappings about 100 yards away from the hives for the bees to clean up. They do a great job. Never started robbing. Congrats again on a great beekeeping year and thank you for your time and effort on the videos.
So jelly of that motorized extractor. I've got a hand crank and if it isn't perfectly balanced I have to lay my whole body over the top of it to keep it from jumping around my shed. It's quite a sight!
Congratulations!! That is very exciting, so happy for you! The other day we took my daughter to a class on bees at a local nature center. It was a little disappointing because having watched all of your videos (and a couple of other bee keepers' videos) we knew more about the bees than the guy giving the presentation.
+Vino Farm, +ChocolateRx, you've gotta do the "school field day" tours of your vineyard; it's really cool to watch as students 'stare in amazement'. We used to do field tours in certain areas of Boeing's avionics department(s). A great experience for all!
That honey looks great! And the extractor looks like a quality item, as well. I will definitely have to upgrade to a motorized unit once i add more hives to the operation. Congratulations on your first "real" harvest!
Nice haul. I had two distinct colors as well. The lighter honey was sweeter and the dark more bold. I still have a bit more to extract of rosemary honey.
I know this old but I would like to know how do you get the different flavors of honey? You said rosemary honey, I've never heard of flavored honey, sounds yummy.
Nice job Jim, congratulations on your first official honey harvest and a great year in beekeeping. I've got to get things squared away and take some of my honey off as well. My dad passed away last weekend at 78 years old and I just haven't had the time or the wherewithal to get into it lately. It's been a rough past few weeks.
Brent Aww, Man. Sorry to hear that. I hope you have help and support. Do you have some local beekeepers you could call on to at least start condensing hives and taking stock of what’s going on for you? I know you have a lot more hives. The thought of taking on a huge task like that must be tough with what you’re going through. On the other hand, maybe digging in to a task like that might be what you need. Sorry I can’t help out.
@@vinofarm Thanks, no there aren't any other beeks around that I know of. I'll get it sorted out eventually or I won't. All my hives seem to be in pretty good shape at this point, I just haven't gotten any fall honey harvested yet. Whatever I don't get will be fine left on the bees, they'll just have extra stores. I still have 500+ acres of beans to harvest and 500+ acres of wheat and cover crop to go yet this fall but I have a couple of weeks yet before that starts so maybe I'll get the honey taken off and the bees set for winter yet. We have a little more time over here in MO than you all do.
Hey vino! Beginner bee keeper here and I am really enjoying your vids. It would be nice if you were to do a video on what frames you use, what brand of supers, just general information that will really help out beginners, and maybe even pros. Thanks 👍
For woodenware, I usually shop at betterbee.com or brushymountainbeefarm.com. I have found the quality of the wooden boxes and frames to be best at those places. I go with the best deals I can find. I really like Brushy Mountain frames, but I try to wait for sales. Stock up when you see good deals.
Good job love the extractor. For next year order an uncappings roller. They are really cheap and make the prep for the extractor goes much faster. You can roll them directly over the extractor, no more need for a cappings tank. Yes you could buy an electric hot knife but they are expensive and honestly still takes almost as much time as your cold knife.
My grandparents lived in Tampa, Florida. (I'm 65y/o) When our family would go there on vacation, we always had to go to Webb City, a big store. My grandpa would say,"Let's go Webbin'". We ALWAYS had to get orange blossom honey. It came packaged in a gallon paint can which made it awesome for us 4 kids! This is the only nasty thing I have ever done in my life, literally. I was about 10. I took a spoon of Fels Naptha soap (a vegetable soap that looks like thickened honey from the bottom of the gallon can) and told my younger sister that it WAS from the bottom of the can! Imagine her face when she was expecting sweetness and taste soapy! She wasn' too mad. JANET! ! ! ! !
I may not be a bee keeper but i love watching this whole process. Something tells me if i went with a hand crank extractor I'd figure a way to make it peddle powered. lol
That would not be too hard if you got a treadle peddle and a flywheel to hold the energy you put into it. (I understand the physics of it but not so much the building. But with those words you could get the help you need)
Congratulations on your new extractor! This is the most honey I have seen you harvest so far. A couple more years and you should have about a one thousand hive commercial operation right? Seriously though, you have really grown by leaps and bounds since I have been following you. Do you have any plans on creating a warm room? Or perhaps using some other method of bringing the temp. up a bit more? Sixty-five isn't all that warm, but I'm no expert. Are you considering blending your honey? I took half of a frame from my hive so far. Being my first year, I'll leave the remaining honey for winter. It will probably be too much, but better than not enough. I am going to consider a press because it is a Kenyan Top Bar and the whole comb has to be taken. I have you to thank for my bees doing very well so far. I've learned a great deal from you. My only regret is I should have gone with the Langstroth design, but I only have one hive and a swarm box. I think it is great that the extractor manufacturer is so close to you. Thanks again Mr. Vino. Regards.
Not only a color difference between the 2 but it appears that one was thicker than the other. Tells you a lot about how different plant matter and times of year can change honey.
You should put in the frames in such a way that the top bar of the frames passes last (so top bar on the right, I hope you know what I mean), since the cells are slightly pointing upwards. You'll have the honey extracted way faster and won't need to spin it for 50 minutes 😂
I put the very first frames in backwards. I realized that after the first 'flip' and corrected myself after that. I think everyone's honey is different. It takes a lot longer to extract goldenrod honey in a 60ºF living room. It would be a lot faster on a hot summer day.
@@vinofarm Defenitly true! You also could consider warming up the frames a bit in sun or with your lamp. Keep up the good work and enjoy your honey! Greetings from the other side of the world, The Netherlands!
Thanks for the video. I have been looking into beekeeping. That is a lot of honey, I was wondering how long can you store honey for? I know the store bought stuff crystallizes pretty quick once opened. Thanks!
Honey don’t go bad for years. Just becuse it crystallizes does not mean it has gone bad. You just heat it in a water bath at 35 celcius and it goes liquid again
How cool is that?? Good call separating types, too! Now you can continue to investigate/research processing honey for sale...if that is, indeed, what you ultimately want to do. From the look of that yield, though, all you'd need to do is adhere to 'food safe' rules and look for a local farmers' market to set up at! ...or just keep it and enjoy! Either way, very happy for you! Dramatically expanded apiary, and a great looking honey harvest! Win - Win! :-)
I'm going to see how we come out of winter and focus next season on planting nectar rich field crops and production rather than expansion. This year was all about expansion. Now, I know how to expand but I'm not sure my area can handle MORE hives. I want to focus on maybe 6-10 hives (or however many survive) and see what they can do if I provide them with good forage. If they do well, I'll expand a bit more each year. I have a feeling 15 hives will be too many for my property/neighborhood.)
Sounds like a solid plan, Jim, and I understand your concern. I wonder what would happen, though, if in the Spring you purchased a number of those tubes of mixed wildflower seeds and liberally spread them around parts of the property not designated for other uses?? I was persuaded, once, to plant those things, and damned if they didn't all sprout and grow like...weeds!! LOL The idea being, of course, that you now have tons of new pollen sources, and a pretty cool assortment of wildflowers as a bonus! Just a wild thought that occurred to me. Congrats, again, on a great looking harvest! :-)
Wonderful video! Love watching you tend your hives and seeing your finished product, your spring honey was just gorgeous. What do you do with your beeswax?
Nice. That spring honey may be more than just dandelion and apple. I had a major flow of Linden Trees in June. I am sure you have Linden trees where you are as well. The Linden (aka Basswood) has a very distinct aroma and the honey is light with the slightest hint of green.
There are light honey years and dark honey years here. Due to that big basswood bloom our spring crop looks like what we normally get in the fall. Tastes great...less filling. lol
If you'd only set frames lateral they would probably empty faster. They are on the outside and therefor have a higher speed and thus more force to pull out honey. The radial frames do not have a lot of speed on the inside near the axis of the extractor. Because of that, that part will take a long while to drip out. But maybe you should try it and prove me wrong :)
This is a good point. However, once you turn the extractor on, you can walk away and watch youtube videos. It doesn't matter if it takes 10 minutes or 50 minutes. I would have a different opinion if this was a hand-crank extractor of course.
You should get a flow hive. They are expensive but it means you can extract honey straight from the hive without disturbing the bees. You don’t need to remove the frames and use the spinning extractor as you can turn a tap which drains honey straight from the hive.
Very interesting , well done , boss I got questions, if I want learn how to make honey from the beginning mean from the hive where shall go to learn from scratch. Thank you Ll
Could you use an empty frame of the same size to fill the empty space to try to keep it more balanced? It would still be lighter because there’s no honey on it so I’m not sure.
Are the caps all wax that you could make candles with? what is the bees wax that i hear people say they make candles and soap with? Love the vids makes we want to get a hive.
Hey buddy!! A tip for you: do not mix the honey from the operculum, keep it separate. Because it is the last honey made by bees, it has better properties and is softer .....
Get yourself a cheap flexible silicone scraper spatula. Works wonders for getting that last coating of honey out of any container! My honey was the opposite. Very sweet in Spring, but very tangy in late summer.
Vino Farm I use one with a handle for the extra reach into buckets and the extractor. To me, there’s nothing worse than reaching into a bucket and getting an armful of honey when you accidentally brush the side of the container!!! 😫😫😫
Before you sell one drop check the prices for your area online. Its easy. Right now it's $5.47/pound wholesale for honey harvested in September in central illinois. Our fall crop is sold and it's still on hives. $60/gallon.
Since we're measuring err things we made well over 100 gallons with about 4 times the colonies this season. 30 production 10 nucs. Youll get there once you've got the drawn supers. Mann Lake bottling tank on sale right now for $995. Great deal.
Thank you for another great video. Two questions; where did you purchase the 600 micron filter and how did you store the spring frames until you were ready to extract. TY.
darnbunny1 I have the filters linked in my amazon links: www.amazon.com/shop/vinofarm As far as storing, honey doesn’t go bad as long as pests don’t get into it. I just had the frames hanging in an empty hive box in my living room all summer. Nothing special. Just keep mice, ants and moths away.
I see in a comment you are going to focus on nectar production next year. do you have a idea on what you are going to plant. I put out 50# of sweet yellow clover and 50# of crimson clover seed last week.i hope it gets established. I still need something for the hot summer months. I know I can plant buckwheat if we get the rain.
Buckwheat grows like a weed on our property. Relatively cheap and easy to spread. However, I did not see results in the hives. They had a solid 1/2 acre right next to the bee yard all through July when there was almost no other forage and the hives still remained empty through the dearth. I was hoping Buckwheat would be the answer for our dearth. I spread almost an acre of clover (red and white) right near the bee yard and it was almost totally taken over by grass. It just didn't take hold. I'm pretty frustrated with field crops. I have collected a lot of seeds from dandelion, milkweed and two types of goldenrod that grow well for us and I'm going to try to distribute it to some new corners of the property in hopes that it spreads naturally. I am also looking for a rock star nectar plant for the month of July. If I can figure that out, it would change our whole beekeeping experience. Right now, they build up a bit in the spring, but all stores are depleted by mid July. Then they are fed for July and early August. The flow comes in hard the last week of August and is over by the second week of September.
I have a three frame hand extractor. My honey was spun out in 5 minutes per side with little effort. I live in Saskatchewan Canada so extracted on a hot day (30C). I had 150 lbs from two nucs. I chose the hand extractor because I read that it does less damage to the comb. Also I’m not sure if related but my honey was much more clear than my friend who used a power extractor. Of course I might change my mind next year since average per hive here is 200-300 lbs per year 😳
My bee club provides 2 hand cranked extractors for members. I harvested 7 1/2 gal turning the crank. It was ok. Price was sure right for the extractor.
I run all deep frames and can extract three in 3 minutes(not including frame loading time and unloading time). Cells are empty and frame is nearly dry. Remember cells are 15 degrees upwards, so better to have top bar on leading edge in rotation. I uncap, spin one side slowly(just flinging out honey) for 30 seconds, stop and flip the frames. Start slowly so just slinging out honey, them ramp up the speed. Maybe takes ?1.5 minutes. Stop and flip frames and run at full speed to completely empty first side. The 3100P is a great extractor for ?up to 1000 lbs of honey in a season.
You may need to look at your local laws for purchasing raw animal products. In some places buying honey that wasn't from a government inspected apirary is illegal. Sounds stupid but it keeps people safe from scam artists who might lace their honey with other products. Just look up the laws about 'purchase of animal products' in your state and make sure that you won't get nailed. (Because some mail systems will steal the product and not even return it)
