Choosing the Right Extractor

It's that time of year where thoughts turn towards honey harvesting.  Last year we only had one hive that produced a surplus, so we opted to to the crush-and-strain thing.  It was messy.  And sticky.  My kitchen floor felt like a movie theater floor.  It also seems wasteful to me to destroy all that perfectly good drawn comb.  So, this year we are considering purchasing an extractor.

A good piece of advice that I've heard is that when you purchase an extractor, you should keep in mind where you plan on being in 2-3 years, not necessarily where you are now.  If you plan on expanding the number of hives you have then it might make sense to buy something a little bigger than you currently need instead of buying twice.

One drawback to buying a bigger piece of equipment than you need is obviously going to be cost.  If you don't want to (or can't) spend the money up front then maybe consider something that can be upgraded down the line.  A handcrank model is going to be cheaper than a motorized unit, but there are several models with a conversion kit.  Some models even allow you to upgrade to additional inner components to hold additional frames.  It's going to be more expensive in the long run, but cheaper than buying two or three different extractors over the course of a few years.  

Something else to consider is whether the extractor is radial or tangential.  Radial means that the frames are positioned like bicycle spokes and the honey is slung from both sides of the frame at once.  In a tangential setup, frames are positioned so that one side faces the side of the canister and honey is only slung out of that side.  There are pros and cons to each style.  A tangential frame has to be pulled out and reversed, sometimes twice during the course of an extraction.  For example, you'd start spinning the basket and spin about half the honey on one side out.  Then reverse them and spin the honey out of the other side.  Then reverse again to get the last of the honey out of the first side (doing it this way prevents blowouts).  Radial baskets on the other hand don't have to be reversed, but it's not necessarily as effective as a tangential setup.  You end up with wetter frames and less extracted honey at the end of the day.  

I'm currently considering something in the Maxant 3100 series right now.  This series allows you to upgrade from a 2-frame setup to a 4-frame setup to a 6/9-frame setup by just switching out the inner basket.  The 2- and 4-frame options are radial (which is somewhat uncommon in those sizes) and the 6/9 can hold 6 medium and/or shallow frames radially and 3 more frames of any size tangentially.  

Right now, the plan is to buy either the 2- or 4-frame version and upgrade to the 6/9-frame basket when needed.  The two-frame does not accommodate deep frames, which isn't exactly a dealbreaker right now.  The 4-frame can hold a deep frame, which would be nice if you have a hive that becomes honeybound, but it is an extra $100.  If I'm going to upgrade to the 6/9-frame anyway it would be more expensive in the long run to get that bigger initial basket.  Since I have minion labor available, I can hold off on the motor kit for now.