DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A TANGENTIAL HONEY - EXTRACTOR

Abstract

The honey extractor is an essential equipment, which any bee-keeper should have in order to extract the maximum quantity of honey from the combs. The tangential position of the combs inside the extractor is used for extracting the honey centrifugally by spinning honey out of the honeycombs after they have been uncapped. Honey is usually extracted by a manual extractor, which requires lots of effort and time. The main objectives of this study were to improve a four comb manual extractor by converting it into an electric one with a safety break unit that handles 8 combs at once in order to extract big amounts of honey in a short period of time. Some physical characteristics such as moisture content, density, and viscosity of honey collected form three kinds of plants (alfalfa, cotton and citrus) were considered in this study. The effect of wax type (artificial paraffin wax and natural beeswax) and combs thickness and mass on the extracted honey was also investigated in this study. The mean moisture contents, density and viscosity at 25 °C for honey collected form citrus, alfalfa and cotton were (18.10 , 16.98 and 14.74 %); (1.40, 1.41, 1.43 g/cm3) and (48.10, 69.03 and 137.96 poises), respectively. The mean density of the artificial paraffin wax and natural beeswax were 0.91 and 0.98 g/cm3 respectively .The mean thicknesses and mass for combs collected from (alfalfa, cotton and citrus) were (3.91, 3.79 and 3.57 cm) and (1707.46, 1640.50 and 1156.50 g), respectively. The extractor was constructed to operate manually and electrically, which can be installed and operated at home or at the farm where breeding of honey bees is possible. The evaluation included two operation modes (manual and electric); three ages of honeycombs (used for 1, 2 and 3 years); three extracting times (08.00 am, 11.00 am and 02.00 pm); and five extraction speeds [5.70, 12.56, 14.65, 17.58 and 21.98 m/s]. It was observed that the maximum value of extracting efficiency was achieved with the electric extractor for, honeycombs used for 3 years, at 02.00 pm and at an extraction speed of 21.98 m/s. The maximum value of extracting capacity was achieved with electric extractor for, honeycombs used for 2 years; at 02.00 pm and at an extraction speed of 21.98 m/s. Minimum value of broken honeycombs was achieved with the electric extractor for the, honeycombs used for 3 years, if extracted at 08.00 am and at a speed of 12.56 m/s.