Honey Extraction Video Textual Description

This panorama shows the equipment and its layout in a modern, fully automated honey extraction system. Two extraction lines run the length of a cinder-block building. A large 120-frame radial extractor is situated midway along each of the lines of conveyor rollers. Between the two lines, a conveyor system carries empty hive boxes from the uncapper to the other end of the system, where they are reloaded with empty frames. The sound of idling equipment can be heard.

Nine frames full of honey can easily weigh close to 30 kg, and so a mechanical lifting aid that gets them into the uncapper is important in a large operation where hundreds of frames are processed over the course of the workday. A hydraulic ram raises the hive box and frames to the level of the uncapper. The labourer then slides them forward and onto the rollers leading into the blade of the uncapper. The labourer uses his hive tool to scrape off any propolis (bee glue) clinging to the hive box, and then puts it aside so it can be loaded with empty frames at the other end of the processing line. Next, he reaches over and begins loading another box of frames.

The automatic uncapper cuts the wax caps off the frames just before they are fed into the extractor. A frame is fed between two vertical reciprocating blades that slice the caps off both sides of the frame at once. As the frame goes into the top of the machine the cream-coloured caps are still visible, and honey glistens on the surface of the frame as it comes out of the uncapper. A labourer in the foreground is removing propolis (bee glue) from the frames so they will slide into the basket of the extractor. In the background, a worker oversees the automatic feeding mechanism, while off to the left another scrapes propolis off the hive boxes that have been emptied of frames.

A camera positioned over the radial extractor offers a bird’s-eye-view of its operation. In the foreground a group of uncapped frames full of honey slides along a roller conveyor. A two-armed folding-scissor mechanism mounted on top of the conveyor roller system pushes a group of thirty frames into one of the four baskets of the radial extractor. As these full frames are pushed in and automatically clamped in place, an equal number of empty frames that were just in the same basket are pushed out onto a conveyor system that will carry them down the line to be placed in the waiting empty hive boxes (painted white) seen in the background.

There are two conveyor lines leading off the far side of the extractor and, as one is filled, another slides sideways into its place to receive another lot of empty hive boxes. A worker standing in front of the extractor uses a hive tool to prevent the frames going into the extractor from being stuck by propolis to those being pushed out. Unlike most smaller extractors, this unit spins on a horizontal rather than a vertical axis. Due to the noise in the honey house the worker is wearing hearing protection.

A worker is standing in front of the stainless-steel radial extractor with the rectangular concave lid open. He reaches over and clips the last group of thirty frames full of honey into the remaining basket of the extractor. In the background a co-worker examines the bulk tank into which the honey is pumped from the extractor.  As the worker in charge of the extractor has clipped the last thirty full frames into the basket, the final group of thirty empty frames slides off down the roller conveyor system.

The worker reaches up and gives the extractor baskets a spin to make sure they are all properly sealed. This action also will help the unit overcome inertia as the baskets start to spin. He then reaches over to press a button on a console to his right, which makes the lid of the extractor begin to lower and, as it does, the spinning baskets are seen to be picking up speed. It’s the centrifugal force created by the spinning that draws the honey out of the frames.

Groups of empty frames containing wax foundation are pushed to the end of a conveyor system. This is the final step in the automated extraction process. A labourer picks up an empty hive box and slides it under the two guides projecting off the end of the assembly line rollers. Nine frames with foundation drop onto the frame rest along the top edge of the hive box. These boxes can now be taken back out to the bee yard for the production of another crop of honey.