Hey everyone, I have been a beekeeper for the last 3 years odd and what an amazing learning curb it has been, fun, adventorous, we are doing our bit for nature and more,
Recenty we had a disaster in the garage as it had gaps in the door so as soon as we spun honey the bees invaded, we had to make a plan and so we did.
Honey extractor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Honey Extractor
PikiWiki Israel 1614 Kibutz Gan-Shmuel sk25- 594 גן-שמואל-במכוורת 1940-50.jpg
uncapping and extracting honey in an Israeli Kibutz in the 1940s
Classification Beekeeping
Types tangential
radial
Inventor Franz Hruschka
Manufacturer various
A honey extractor is a mechanical device used in the extraction of honey from honeycombs. A honey extractor extracts the honey from the honey comb without destroying the comb. Extractors work by centrifugal force. A drum or container holds a frame basket which spins, flinging the honey out. With this method the wax comb stays intact within the frame and can be reused by the bees.
Bees cover the filled in cells with wax cap that must be removed (cut by knife, etc.) before centrifugation.
Contents
1 History
2 Types of Extractors
3 Alternative Methods
4 See also
5 References
History
Franz Hruschka in uniform
In 1838, Johann Dzierzon, a Polish Roman Catholic priest and beekeeper devised the first practical movable-comb beehive, allowing for the manipulation of individual honeycombs without destroying the structure of the hive. This idea was further developed by L. L. Langstroth, an American pastor and beekeeper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who patented his beehive design in 1852.[1] These frames were a major improvement over the old method of beekeeping using allowed tree trunks and skeps. However, no easy method had been found to easily extract the honey.
The extractor was invented in the summer of 1865, by Franz Hruschka, a former Officer in the Austrian Army who was by then a beekeeper in Italy. The exact date of the invention is not known but on July 1, 1865, he explained in an article in the Eichstraett Beekeeping News his old method of crushing method to extract honey. This article would have been written in May or June of that year. In September 1865, he makes the announcement at the Brno Beekeeper Conference of his new invention: the centrifuge extractor. The first model was built by Bollinger Manufacturer in Vienna, Austria.[2]
The first version was a simple tin box attached to a wire cord with a funnel at the bottom to which a glass was fastened to collect the honey. The extraction was however slow and required a lot of effort from the beekeeper. The second version used the same design but attached to an arm at the top of a tripod. Finally the final version resembled what we recognize today as an extractor with the familiar round tub.[2]
De Hruschka Extractor (first version)
De Hruschka Extractor (second version)
De Hruschka Extractor (final version)
Scale models of the three versions of the extractors were presented in August 1868 at the Exposition des Insectes (the Insect Exposition) in Paris, France.[3] The idea was soon published in several beekeeping newspapers worldwide and extractors were manufactured by several vendors and sold worldwide based on his idea.[4]
Types of Extractors
Extractors can be one of two kinds depending on how the frames are oriented in the basket:
tangential: one side of the comb facing outward
radial: the top bar of the frame facing outward[5]
Both rely on the use of centrifugal force to force the honey out of the cells. During the extraction process the honey is forced out of the uncapped wax cells, runs down the walls of the extractor and pools at the bottom. A tap or honey pump allows for the removal of honey from the extractor. Honey must be removed in time and always stay below the rotating frames as otherwise it prevents extractor from spinning with sufficient speed.
Extractors can vary in sizes from holding just a couple frames to large commercial ones holding up to sixty frames. The smaller ones can be powered manually while others (especially the commercial ones) will be powered by an electric motor. Most hand-cranked extractors will rely on a gearing system to increase the speed of the rotation of the frames.[5]
Most large commercial extractors are radial and rely on the upward slope of the comb cells.[5] When bees build their comb, the cells are sloped upward from the center rib at an angle of 10 to 14 degrees.[6] By leveraging this slope angle, it is easier to extract the honey.[5] In addition, the amount of work during extraction is reduced in the radial type because the frames do not have to be turned over to extract the honey from the other side of the comb (however some extractors are capable of turning combs automatically).
Some portable honey extractors are driven by gasoline or diesel small engines. Larger diesel engines are more expensive than a compact 2 stroke gasoline ones and usually use the diesel fuel to operate at lower rpms with higher torque. Diesel-powered extractors are harder to start, especially in winter due to reduced fuel viscosity under the ice and snow conditions. more here as per wikipedia.org
Beehive
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Bee hives)
Jump to navigationJump to search
For other uses, see Beehive (disambiguation).
Painted wooden beehives with active honey bees
A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus Apis live and raise their young. Though the word beehive is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature distinguishes nest from hive. Nest is used to discuss colonies that house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or are hanging and exposed. Hive is used to describe an artificial/man-made structure to house a honey bee nest. Several species of Apis live in colonies, but for honey production the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) and the eastern honey bee (Apis cerana) are the main species kept in hives.[1][2]
The nest's internal structure is a densely packed group of hexagonal prismatic cells made of beeswax, called a honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food (honey and pollen) and to house the brood (eggs, larvae, and pupae).
Beehives serve several purposes: production of honey, pollination of nearby crops, housing supply bees for apitherapy treatment, and to try to mitigate the effects of colony collapse disorder. In America, hives are commonly transported so that bees can pollinate crops in other areas.[3] A number of patents have been issued for beehive designs.
Contents
1 Honey bee nests
2 Ancient hives
3 Traditional hives
3.1 Mud hives
3.2 Clay hives
3.3 Skeps
3.4 Bee gums
4 Modern hives
4.1 Vertical hives
4.1.1 Langstroth hives
4.1.2 Warré hives
4.1.3 WBC hives
4.1.4 CDB hives
4.1.5 AZ hives
4.2 Horizontal hives
4.2.1 Top-bar hives
4.2.2 Long Box Hive
5 Symbolism
6 Relocation and destruction
6.1 Relocation
6.2 Destruction
6.2.1 Animal destruction
6.2.2 Human destruction
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Honey bee nests
Natural bee colony in the hollow of a tree
Honey bees use caves, rock cavities and hollow trees as natural nesting sites. In warmer climates they may occasionally build exposed hanging nests. Members of other subgenera have exposed aerial combs. The nest is composed of multiple honeycombs, parallel to each other, with a relatively uniform bee space. It usually has a single entrance. Western honey bees prefer nest cavities approximately 45 litres in volume and avoid those smaller than 10 or larger than 100 litres.[4] Western honey bees show several nest-site preferences: the height above ground is usually between 1 metre (3.3 ft) and 5 metres (16 ft), entrance positions tend to face downward, equatorial-facing entrances are favored, and nest sites over 300 metres (980 ft) from the parent colony are preferred.[5] Bees usually occupy nests for several years.
The bees often smooth the bark surrounding the nest entrance, and coat the cavity walls with a thin layer of hardened plant resin called propolis. Honeycombs are attached to the walls along the cavity tops and sides, but small passageways are left along the comb edges.[6] The basic nest architecture for all honeybees is similar: honey is stored in the upper part of the comb; beneath it are rows of pollen-storage cells, worker-brood cells, and drone-brood cells, in that order. The peanut-shaped queen cells are normally built at the lower edge of the comb.[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive
All spun off and ready for the customer to collect 50kg's of whole, raw, sweet honey! Happy days!
Nature the incredible!
May you have the most incredible Sunday! Love and light, be blessed!
Cheer$:)