Rob Stockley 3,417 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 9 minutes ago, cBank said: Possibly a silly question, but what’s conversion between volume and weight? A google suggests about 1.45kgs per litre, but my scales are way too imprecise to get decent measure. I assume it varies depending on water content and honey type? You may need to consider pressure and temperature aswell. Link to post Share on other sites
yesbut 6,232 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 51 minutes ago, Rob Stockley said: ou may need to consider pressure and temperature aswell. Definitely, Mt Everest vs Dead Sea Link to post Share on other sites
cBank 801 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Someone’s going to say ‘salination’ next aren’t they? Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Stockley 3,417 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 9 hours ago, yesbut said: Definitely, Mt Everest vs Dead Sea Don't forget to face North and keep your mouth closed. Link to post Share on other sites
John T 111 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 (edited) Slightly off topic, but given the price of wax, do the extractors keep the wax or is it returned to you? (in some form or other). Edited December 23, 2017 by John T Link to post Share on other sites
M4tt 4,941 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 10 minutes ago, John T said: Slightly off topic, but given the price of wax, do the extractors keep the wax or is it returned to you? (in some form or other). My extraction guy returns it to me in blocks 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
tristan 4,362 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 1 hour ago, John T said: Slightly off topic, but given the price of wax, do the extractors keep the wax or is it returned to you? (in some form or other). depends on what deal you do with them. you can get your wax back, or everyones thrown together then its divided up at the end, or they pay you for it. keep in mind different extraction setups can have big differences in wax volumes. Link to post Share on other sites
Kiwifruiter 605 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 The guys i use dont pay or give back. It sucks. Link to post Share on other sites
frazzledfozzle 7,484 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 5 minutes ago, Kiwifruiter said: The guys i use dont pay or give back. It sucks. At $16-$18 a kilo that’s a lot of money to leave on the table. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
tristan 4,362 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 41 minutes ago, Kiwifruiter said: The guys i use dont pay or give back. It sucks. i hope they take it off the extraction price ! ! Link to post Share on other sites
Trevor Gillbanks 6,847 Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 @Philbee @Kiwi Bee Deleted mis quote for you. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
deejaycee 2,457 Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 4 hours ago, Kiwifruiter said: The guys i use dont pay or give back. It sucks. Do you not go through Arataki? If so, you are being paid for it, but at the honey price. Link to post Share on other sites
Kiwifruiter 605 Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 18 minutes ago, deejaycee said: Do you not go through Arataki? If so, you are being paid for it, but at the honey price. This is true but when wax is worth twice honey.... Link to post Share on other sites
Kiwifruiter 605 Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 And note i was very carefully not saying who i used.... Link to post Share on other sites
Popular Post john berry 5,636 Posted December 26, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 26, 2017 One of the biggest problems extracting for other people is loss. Pallets of honey are weighed when they come in and some of them have more bees than honey. Loss one= the bees fly away. Wax. Up till very recently wax was worth less than honey and for manuka it's still worth a lot less, on top of that no matter how good your system is for removing honey from wax you always lose some honey. Try it sometime, scrape some cappings and then squeeze them absolutely dry in a piece of muslin. I'll guarantee it will be well over 50% honey. Then comes dross. This is made up of bits of black comb, dead bees, broken frames et cetera. On top of all that wax takes a lot of time and a lot of expensive energy to process. I don't do my own extraction but I am very familiar with the process and would be amazed if contract extractors made money on wax. I'm pretty good at estimating honey weights when taking off boxes of honey and at the end of the season my estimated weights are normally within half a kilogram of actual yields. 28 kg per box is the heaviest average I've ever extracted but your hives are losing honey well before that point is reached. I prefer to take off honey at the 22\23 kg point. 2 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites
tristan 4,362 Posted December 26, 2017 Share Posted December 26, 2017 1 hour ago, john berry said: Pallets of honey are weighed when they come in and some of them have more bees than honey. Loss one= the bees fly away. good point if your weighing boxes out in the field. but no reason you couldn't weigh the boxes after the bees have come out. the other factor is crystalline honey. a lot can come out of the frames but ends up caught in the filter system and ends up going to waste. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
john berry 5,636 Posted December 26, 2017 Share Posted December 26, 2017 At Arataki the boxes are weighed in front of the beekeeper as they are brought in. It keeps it all honest and mostly there aren't too many bees but there is the odd load that you can't see for bees. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
jamesc 4,924 Posted December 26, 2017 Share Posted December 26, 2017 We've done a bit of contract work for people. There's a huge element of trust in the whole procedure, but generally people seem to expect to get more than they do. We do the boxes in batches and fill the drums and that's it. You get whats in your drums. The wax is an issue as it's a lot of work to start with a clean spinner to return the correct amount of wax to the owner. There's a formula for working it out ..... a percentage of honey /wax , and as we get into the swing of it I'll have to dig it out of the memory banks. The best way to ensure customer satisfaction is to get them to help out .... evenif it's just providing the smoko. 4 Link to post Share on other sites
Philbee 4,675 Posted December 26, 2017 Author Share Posted December 26, 2017 Halfway through a batch a few years ago I counted the drums, did some numbers and things didn't add up. I questioned the operator and was assured all was good I questioned the numbers again and what do you know, a drum was found out the back of the yard with my name on it. That was just the one I got back, more made it out the gate. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Popular Post WJFunnell 14 Posted December 26, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 26, 2017 Lots of variables here chaps. tempeture, heating time, number of empty frames in each super, number of bees, brood, pollen in each super. You would be surprised what I see in some BF's box's We seem to average about 20 box's per 300 Kg of honey. Last year it was was closer to 25 supers per drum on occasions. If you are unsure feel free to be present, kitted in MPI compliant hygiene equipment while we extract your supers. 5 Link to post Share on other sites
Philbee 4,675 Posted December 27, 2017 Author Share Posted December 27, 2017 (edited) This particular incident I describe led to a 90 box test run by the management of the company We weighed 90 full boxes that I supplied at just under 34kg average and weighed the wets out at less than 11kg and decided that the net was probably approx 22kg/box These were all made up boxes as opposed to boxes straight off the hives. Edited December 27, 2017 by Philbee 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
WJFunnell 14 Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 I seldom see that happening when the flow is on. it is not unusual to get at least one box of empty frames for each pallet of supers (24) Link to post Share on other sites
Philbee 4,675 Posted December 27, 2017 Author Share Posted December 27, 2017 (edited) 17 minutes ago, WJFunnell said: I seldom see that happening when the flow is on. it is not unusual to get at least one box of empty frames for each pallet of supers (24) Yes I can understand that. I dont like paying for or transporting boxes that aren't full to the brim Also I leave anything that isnt 80% capped for the Bees so they need to come out. This is why my boxes can weigh 37kg in fact the reason the test batch averaged only 34 kg was it was the mop up round and I was a bit over it all by then There are all sorts of problems on site with this approach such as robbing but my sites tend to be small and Im very careful to only have one box open at a time which does require a lot of gear such as spare mats and lids. Edited December 27, 2017 by Philbee 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
fieldbee 255 Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 On 12/27/2017 at 7:55 AM, john berry said: One of the biggest problems extracting for other people is loss. Pallets of honey are weighed when they come in and some of them have more bees than honey. Loss one= the bees fly away. Wax. Up till very recently wax was worth less than honey and for manuka it's still worth a lot less, on top of that no matter how good your system is for removing honey from wax you always lose some honey. Try it sometime, scrape some cappings and then squeeze them absolutely dry in a piece of muslin. I'll guarantee it will be well over 50% honey. Then comes dross. This is made up of bits of black comb, dead bees, broken frames et cetera. On top of all that wax takes a lot of time and a lot of expensive energy to process. I don't do my own extraction but I am very familiar with the process and would be amazed if contract extractors made money on wax. I'm pretty good at estimating honey weights when taking off boxes of honey and at the end of the season my estimated weights are normally within half a kilogram of actual yields. 28 kg per box is the heaviest average I've ever extracted but your hives are losing honey well before that point is reached. I prefer to take off honey at the 22\23 kg point. Thank you @john berry i was getting very frustrated with some of the moaning/comments above. Then along comes your comment and I think okay someone who extracts their own honey is speaking up. But no you say you dont do your own extraction, Your comments are to the point and very balanced, people please take note. I had one beek shocked that I wouldnt melt his wax down that another extractor had given him back. Told him it wasnt worth my time and he wouldnt want to pay what I would charge. I have just extracted 50 boxes for a newbie and said no I wouldnt melt his wax for him and I keep it. Then told him he could have it back if he brought a container and he could do it himself with the sun. He wasnt interested said he wasnt set up to do that. He was cheerful and honest so gave him a small block 4 kg. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
tommy dave 1,184 Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 (edited) 18 hours ago, fieldbee said: @john berry I have just extracted 50 boxes for a newbie and said no I wouldnt melt his wax for him and I keep it. what sort of arrangement do you normally run in this situation if you're buying the honey from the beek? pay a $ amount to them for each kg of honey extracted, less a $ charge per frame extracted? Edited December 30, 2017 by tommy dave Link to post Share on other sites
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