In the extraction room, there is a 33′ long piece of equipment that will pop the honey frames from the honey super and all the operator has to do is slide all the frames forward to a chain driven feeder. It automatically feeds the frames one at a time into the decapper which cuts the caps off the sealed honeycomb.

After the decapping, the frames are deposited on a long slide over a drip pan and lined up for a hand crank to slide 30 frames into the extractor which is, instead of an upright radial, is laying on its side similar to a barrel laying on its side. Once the first rack has been filled, then the operator rotates the basket so the empty rack is in line with the frame slide so the other 30 frames can be loaded. Then the operator starts the extractor spinning.

While the honey is being slung out of the combs, the operator starts decapping again. About the time the frame slide is loaded with decapped frames of honey, the extractor has slung all the honey out of the first 60 frames.

On the far end of the setup next to the extractor, there is another slide setup to receive the extracted frames, but, this is the neat part, the operator doesn’t have to hand unload the extractor. As the frames are hand cranked into the decapper rack, the new frames pushes the old ones out onto the receiving slide. Then the slid is shifted on rollers to line up the second set of receiving rails with the extractor.

The frame boxer places a honey super under the extracted frame rails and lifts up around 10 frames and pulls a loaded super out and sets it on the hand truck ready to go to a stacking room. Like I said in the last post, you have to see it in action to really appreciate the operation of this wonderful tool.