Although it’s not quite Flow related, I finally put together a new extractor and put it through its paces with a box of Ideal frames that were ready to come off a hive.
The extractor is a 4 frame Lega (manual) which was purchased from Becs Bee Hive in Victoria (importer of Lega equipment).
The design of the cage is nice because it allows two ideals to be placed on each side providing enough space for 8 Ideal frames to be extracted at the same time.
Also took this opportunity to use an Idler Wheel (uncapping wheel/roller) for the first time instead of a hot knife… and I must admit… it’s not a bad option (and perfect width for Ideal frames)!
does the Idler roller leave tiny specs of wax in the honey? I tried a different type and ended up with these tiny specs clogging the strainers and so went back to the hot knife.
It did, but I managed to pick the right filter to catch it and didn’t clog too badly. By the end the filter was fairly covered, but I just scraped it to one side with a spatula. It sounds like an issue, but I didn’t use a hot knife or even an uncapping tray… rolled the frames directly above the extractor (had them above the box for photos)… so cleanup was far less involved. It may not scale with bigger boxes and more frames with the filter clogging.
One thing I wanted to confirm was that the bees were as happy to repair the result, the frames definitely don’t look as ‘neat’ after uncapping like this, but I’ve seen bees happily repair comb uncapped with a kitchen fork, so I’m confident it will be ok.
Hi Sam, that looks like a great extractor. I like using a hot knife because it brings everything nice & straight, as well as I use it to deburr the top & bottom bars.
Interestingly i’ve had a few queries about these frames, so thought i’d post this image from anyone that hasn’t come across Ideal frames before (sorry can’t credit the source of the image… think it was an eBay ad or beekeeping site).
Alliance from NZ make nice quality wooden Ideal frames (wooden frame in my extraction photos), there are also a couple of suppliers in QLD who make them. Unfortunately they aren’t as popular as I wish (and they once) were… but they have a great list of benefits! eg. I have an ideal box between my brood box and Flow super so the bees always have some stores available but I don’t have to dedicate a full depth super.
