Cleaning honey extractor

As JBM says. Utter stupidity for any beek to recommend putting it outside for bees to clean. Utter stupidity for several reasons. Two being that if the honey was contaminated by material from a diseased hive, potentially all the bees in the area will be infected by this folly, and if diseased bees from elsewhere are attracted to collect a free meal they may pass on the disease to your bees as well. A really stupid idea from a supposedly experienced beek, IMO.

.
Most dangerous is that open feeding starts easily robbing. Small nucs are first in danger. When robbers get an address, they are all the time hanging around and ready to beging like firestation.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

sheeesh even more reckless stupidity. Anyone who leaves the supers out in the open for bees to clean is definitely a few buns short of a tea party.

DAft even to think of doing it.

Glad I don't live anywhere near you

Click to expand...

Agreed, I was even more disappointed to see the BBKA endorsing open feeding on Twitter the other day!

to be fair, that was an admission of an error rather than an endorsement.

I hose it down first with cold water, then wipe it with a sponge and some washing up liquid. once left the extractor in the garden for a couple of hours (my hives are 3 miles away) while messing around with the cappings. next thing I saw out of the kitchen window was a cloud of frenzied bees. So many bees drowned in just a tiny bit of honey. a sad sight. never make that mistake again.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

sheeesh even more reckless stupidity. Anyone who leaves the supers out in the open for bees to clean is definitely a few buns short of a tea party.
DAft even to think of doing it.
Glad I don't live anywhere near you

Click to expand...

If i wanted my bees to clear the cappings from an extractions would it be ok to put the cappings in a container, such as a feeder for example, and put that in the hive? (provided the cappings are from that apiary obviously)

Okay .. I'm now going to push this discussion even further..

Do you extract all the frames/supers from one hive, putting the wets back on that hive, ensuring that no honey residue contaminates the outside of the box, clean everything and then start of the next box?

Or

do you take off all the supers you want to extract in a box, manually uncap, getting honey residue on your hands which you transfer to the next frame, or by spinning frames from more than one box spread the residue across frames, put the frames back in supers, transfering the residue to the supers as you handle them, and then put those supers back on the hive you removed them from .. or possibly another hive in the same apiary.

Ever noticed bees cleaning the outside of the supers after you've put them back on the hives? They're not all from the hive the super was put on..

As to late at night /early morning those time are very season and temperature dependent..
I've had to wait till after 9:30 in the evening when it's nearly dark to shut-up and move Nucs because the bees have been flying until then.. not a very good time to be trying to wash an extractor.. and putting the floodlit on in the garden doesn't help it just attracts the bees from the hives ...

When you're in a hole stop digging and stop trying to justify your own stupidity by nitpicking over the far end of a fahrt

Zante said:

If i wanted my bees to clear the cappings from an extractions would it be ok to put the cappings in a container, such as a feeder for example, and put that in the hive? (provided the cappings are from that apiary obviously)

Click to expand...

yes, no problem with that, but be careful, once they've cleaned the cappings they can get very creative with the wax left behind

Vortex said:

Okay .. I'm now going to push this discussion even further..

Do you extract all the frames/supers from one hive, putting the wets back on that hive, ensuring that no honey residue contaminates the outside of the box, clean everything and then start of the next box?

Or

do you take off all the supers you want to extract in a box, manually uncap, getting honey residue on your hands which you transfer to the next frame, or by spinning frames from more than one box spread the residue across frames, put the frames back in supers, transfering the residue to the supers as you handle them, and then put those supers back on the hive you removed them from .. or possibly another hive in the same apiary.

Ever noticed bees cleaning the outside of the supers after you've put them back on the hives? They're not all from the hive the super was put on..

As to late at night /early morning those time are very season and temperature dependent..
I've had to wait till after 9:30 in the evening when it's nearly dark to shut-up and move Nucs because the bees have been flying until then.. not a very good time to be trying to wash an extractor.. and putting the floodlit on in the garden doesn't help it just attracts the bees from the hives ...

Click to expand...

Would you like to run the risk of AFB or EFB?
For bio security put the frames back in original super and back on the same hive, after storing them wet or dry as below.
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=25928&highlight=Storing+wet+supers
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=20516&highlight=Storing+wet+supers
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19416&highlight=Storing+wet+supers
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=13493&highlight=Storing+wet+supers

Luckily honey is totally soluble in water. Remember that when you leave the gate slightly open overnight while waiting for the bubbles to rise. A kitchen floor half an inch thick in honey will prove the above!
E

wessexmario said:

to be fair, that was an admission of an error rather than an endorsement.

Click to expand...

But them liking the 'I have done this for 20 years it's ok' is an endorsement.

Ah, isn't the bottom one the one who was nocturnal queen raiders in her apiaries as well

jenkinsbrynmair said:

sheeesh even more reckless stupidity. Anyone who leaves the supers out in the open for bees to clean is definitely a few buns short of a tea party.
DAft even to think of doing it.
Glad I don't live anywhere near you

Click to expand...

Someone mention a Tea party ill bring some buns

Thank you for your advice. All has been greatly appreciated.

originally posted by jenkinsbrynmair:
When you're in a hole stop digging and stop trying to justify your own stupidity by nitpicking over the far end of a fahrt

Click to expand...

I'm not digging per say I'm attempting to get you to consider the entire extraction process as a whole from start to end (see below)

originally posted by Anduril :
Would you like to run the risk of AFB or EFB?
For bio security put the frames back in original super and back on the same hive, after storing them wet or dry as below.

Click to expand...

Almost got the point..

There is a line regarding biosecurity.. but it's a case of where you draw it .. hence my examples

If you were really paranoid about bio security then you would have to extract hive by hive and clean everything between hives and that includes ensuring that no residue is transferred to the outside of the supers.

If you extract on either a per apiary or per month basis and always load your extractor to it's capacity, don't use rimmed separators when stacking wet supers, then inherently you are going to get transfer across frames and across supers.
This effectively means that the entire extraction process is not bio secure.

The potential issue then is the spread of AFB or EFB spores (given that we're ignoring any transfer of pathogen via varroa transfer between bees) in extracted honey residue by virtue of the fact that that residue is available to a "wild" population which may include your own bees.

Whilst the residue transferred to the outside of a super is considerably less than that which would be obtained from an cleaning a sticky extractor, it is still there, and given it is on the outside is available to the "population at large".

The real question therefore is .. if you have either AFB or EFB why are you extracting the honey from those hives in the first place? I wouldn't!

Vortex said:

I'm not digging per say I'm attempting to get you to consider the entire extraction process as a whole from start to end (see below)



Almost got the point..

There is a line regarding biosecurity.. but it's a case of where you draw it .. hence my examples

If you were really paranoid about bio security then you would have to extract hive by hive and clean everything between hives and that includes ensuring that no residue is transferred to the outside of the supers.

If you extract on either a per apiary or per month basis and always load your extractor to it's capacity, don't use rimmed separators when stacking wet supers, then inherently you are going to get transfer across frames and across supers.
This effectively means that the entire extraction process is not bio secure.

The potential issue then is the spread of AFB or EFB spores (given that we're ignoring any transfer of pathogen via varroa transfer between bees) in extracted honey residue by virtue of the fact that that residue is available to a "wild" population which may include your own bees.

Whilst the residue transferred to the outside of a super is considerably less than that which would be obtained from an cleaning a sticky extractor, it is still there, and given it is on the outside is available to the "population at large".

The real question therefore is .. if you have either AFB or EFB why are you extracting the honey from those hives in the first place? I wouldn't!

Click to expand...

ALL my frames in affected hives.- both brood and honey - were destroyed in last year's AFB outbreak
Alll my boxes in use in affected hives - were sterlised by the BI's blowtorch..

So IF you know you have AFB and have notified a BI and action has been taken .. then OK.

If on the other hand you have AFB and don't recognise you have..... your extraction methods are likely to lead to all hives having it..

Our Association Apiary ended up segregating hive boxes and components into groups to eradicate transfer of AFB spores. Nothing was done about combs though - ALL from infected colonies were burned..

Vortex said:

There is a line regarding biosecurity.. but it's a case of where you draw it

Click to expand...

Obviously you lost your pencil a long time ago

madasafish said:

If on the other hand you have AFB and don't recognise you have..... your extraction methods are likely to lead to all hives having it..

Click to expand...

The big problem is the beekeeper.

Vortex said:

Okay .. I'm now going to push this discussion even further..

Do you extract all the frames/supers from one hive, putting the wets back on that hive, ensuring that no honey residue contaminates the outside of the box, clean everything and then start of the next box? ...

... do you take off all the supers you want to extract in a box, manually uncap, getting honey residue on your hands which you transfer to the next frame, or by spinning frames from more than one box spread the residue across frames, put the frames back in supers, transfering the residue to the supers as you handle them, and then put those supers back on the hive you removed them from .. or possibly another hive in the same apiary.

Ever noticed bees cleaning the outside of the supers after you've put them back on the hives? They're not all from the hive the super was put on..

As to late at night /early morning those time are very season and temperature dependent..
I've had to wait till after 9:30 in the evening when it's nearly dark to shut-up and move Nucs because the bees have been flying until then.. not a very good time to be trying to wash an extractor.. and putting the floodlit on in the garden doesn't help it just attracts the bees from the hives ...

Click to expand...

I know the condition of my bees. Honey should never be extracted from diseased colonies.

There are, according to Beebase, over 50 registered apiaries within bee-flight of my main apiary, more than 60 within reach of the other one. I do not wish to attract any of these bees into my apiary by encouraging a feeding frenzy that could lead to robbing of my colonies.

I extract from one apiary at a time and, generally, one colony at a time.

I wash my hands a lot whilst extracting, the outside of any boxes does not get covered in honey because, well, it doesn't - why should it?

I extract indoors and I clean my extractor indoors.

The wet frames are left to drain indoors and are then stored in a bee-proof stack until I replace them, which is always done in the evening during the active season, but the stack may stay untouched until the following year and the supers are needed again. I have never seen bees trying to access the stack of empty supers, there is never honey on the outside of the boxes.

There is a line regarding biosecurity.. but it's a case of where you draw it .. hence my examples ...

... The potential issue then is the spread of AFB or EFB spores (given that we're ignoring any transfer of pathogen via varroa transfer between bees) in extracted honey residue by virtue of the fact that that residue is available to a "wild" population which may include your own bees.

Click to expand...

If you know your apiary is clean of disease they why would you attract bees from all colonies within flying distance by open feeding?

If you were really paranoid about bio security then you would have to extract hive by hive and clean everything between hives and that includes ensuring that no residue is transferred to the outside of the supers.

Click to expand...

Not paranoia, and quite a lot of beekeepers do do this. They label each box and each frame to make sure it goes back onto the original hive.

Frankly, it looks as if you're trying to justify the unjustifiable by throwing in all sorts of things you think are ridiculous.

Are there any other things to do with honey extraction that you think are okay? What level of biosecurity and food hygiene do you think is necessary when preparing foodstuffs?