🍯 Heather Honey Doesn’t Spin Out - You Need a Special Extractor

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. I have finished my extraction for 2020, so I do a big sigh of relief, but I realized I haven't reviewed my extractor. So purpose of this video, is I'm going to review my Abello Lyson 24-frame radial extractor that has a bit of a hidden secret. So one of the first things I bought was this extractor, and the reason I bought it was because it's a bit of a dual-purpose extractor. So I'll give you a little bit of a background about extractors first. If you look at kind of the Abello website or any kind of extractor manufacturer website, it's really easy to be a bit bamboozled by the amount of options that are on display. If you're looking to buy your first-time extractor, I would recommend go for either a 12-frame or a 20-frame radial extractor. Now that may seem like massive overkill, especially the 20-frame option, but you're much better off future-proofing it at least a little bit, and you want to go down the radial option. So the few different types of extractor, and I'll just talk you through them. So radial spins the honey out and pivots around this point here. It spins like that. That's a radial extractor. Tangential, it spins like that, so it's like an orbit. And then a swing cage basket basically does the same, but then it spins it back around the other way. So that's incredibly difficult and confusing, but you'll see it more because this model here is actually a swing cage basket as well. The differences between the two, Tangential tend to be a little bit cheaper. I would always say though, go with a radial if you can afford it. It's just easier, a little bit more versatile because you can add screens in to extract frames tangentially as well. Most honeys will extract radially, of course, with the main exception of heather. You definitely can't extract heather honey radially. You need to either use a tangential screen, tangential extractor, or a swing cage basket extractor like this one here. So if you're looking for a model, I would highly recommend, I mean, 12 or 20 frame. Most of the brands are pretty similar, but I mean, try and get like a decent trusted brand. So let's talk a little bit about the functions of this extractor here then. So I've just finished my heather 2020 crop in this, and it's performed really, really well. And this was the main reason that I went with this model. I wanted, I wanted a big extractor, so I was kind of umming and ahhing between a 24 frame or a 30 frame. I didn't want a horizontal one because I literally just don't have the room to have a full line in my room. So I wanted 24-frame or a 30-frame, and I originally ordered the 30-frame radial, and then I started looking at the swing cage basket ones and thought, I can't really justify the additional expense to get a swing cage basket one. We're talking the difference between maybe like £1,500 to £2,000, up to £4,000 or £5,000, and I just didn't have the money at that point. to look at a full swing basket option that does 12 or 24-frame swing basket. And then I looked at this one, and I got this one from Leisen for £2,100 or £2,400 including the VAT. I'll put it up at the bottom, the actual price. And the reason I went for this one is that it gives you the best of both worlds, really. I mean, when I go to the heather, it's very much small scale. I don't need a dedicated heather extractor. I don't have space for a dedicated heather extractor. I like multi-purpose kit, so I like kit that performs 2 functions. And this is exactly what this one does. So it's a 24-frame radial, and I'll chuck some frames in and show you that in a little bit. But first of all, I want to show you the swing cage function that it has. So it comes with all of these kind of gubbins inside. It's full of heather honey at the moment, and it smells amazing. Just finished extracting. So these are the cages that you get that come with it. 100% food-grade stainless. Really, really simple, do you know what I mean? Nice welds on them. And all they do is they slot into place just with a couple of springs, and they just slot in here. So it's really, really quick to put them in, take them out. And this is what I've been using to tangentially extract my heather honeycombs. So it's that dual-purpose function that really, really sold me on this machine. So I'll just pop it back in. You'll see how quick it is. So that's it. I've connected the springs really, really quick. Very, very simple. You do have these like little connectors that are supposed to hold the springs in place. and a connector to go on top of here to hold everything on. I find you don't actually need it, and the kind of— I don't want to put little bits of metal and stuff in here that could potentially break and get into your honey, so I leave them out. Works absolutely fine. I've had no issues with it whatsoever. So I'll show you this in operation. Really, really simple control panel. I'll do a close-up and show you some of the functions on there as well. But what I do normally, just for everyday use, is I use— you basically have a clockwise function and an anti-clockwise function, and then you have 10, 20, 30, 40%, and you can just adjust it completely manually. And then what's really good about this one as well is it has fully automatic functions as well. So you can say go function 7 and it puts a full cycle on for you. So if you want to see the full cycle in action, I've used that on my Heather Honey video. So if you click the link there, that will take you to the Heather Honey video and it will show you an actual full 4-minute cycle of this machine in action. So it's as simple as that. You've got start and stop. You can track through the different percentage speeds here, and then you can track through the different functions there. You've got an emergency stop on the side as well. Really, really simple functions as always with a Bello. Taking it up through the speeds, you get that kick, which is the baskets have flung out to the sides and now working tangentially. 40%, we're at there. 80%. And then 100%. So that machine is working at full capacity now. Obviously not got anything in the frames, but you know what I mean? You can see how nice and steady and still that is. Once you put frames in and introduce honey, you do get a little bit of wobble to start off with, but then as soon as the machine and the frames have balanced themselves out, Then you will get this kind of steady-state motion. That's exactly what you want. You need to make sure whenever you're using an extractor, you leave enough honey at the base to act as a ballast, especially with the big ones, you know what I mean, they can wobble. Some people put casters on them, that's a nice idea as well. I find if you put enough honey at the bottom, then you really, really don't need to worry about anything. It doesn't wobble around the room. So then obviously stop. If you open it, it has an auto-stop function, slows it right down for you. You get to smell the lovely heather honey in it as well if you do that. It blows it all out. So I'll just show you a couple of close-ups of that swing basket in action. Like I say, do you know what I mean? It goes in, you put them in radially. As soon as the machine starts to work, it flings those cages out to the outside and then extracts tangentially. And then the automatic function that if you want to have a look at that other heather video, it shows the various speeds and the fact that it flings it one way and then reverses it flings it the other way, because tangential extraction, you only extract one side at a time. So if you're doing it with tangential screens, you need to put it in one way, turn it around, put it in the other way again. This machine does it all for you though, so it's literally push a button and it's done. Leave it 4 or 5 minutes and then come back and do the rest of them. So it's a really good time-saving machine, especially for heather, because what you don't want to be doing if you're extracting heather honey is have to constantly come back to the machine and turn frames around Your time's much better spent using the heather loosener, doing something else, or tidying up, which is generally what I end up doing. So a couple of close-ups of the machine. You can see the swing baskets sit in there like that, and they're connected by a spring. So you get a spring on either end. Now it seems like it's just a big jumble at the moment, but when you turn the machine on, you do see exactly what happens. Obviously, if you're turning it that way, uh, they get swung that way. And they just all come out to the edge. So it's a lot easier just to see it in action. Unfortunately, it won't work with the lid up. It's a safety feature, and I'm not going to disable the safety feature, so you just have to look through. Excuse the mess, it is full of honey. It's the— I've been 3 days solid extracting, so it is a bit messy. But this is the swing cage in action. So all you do— has a function as well that you can't turn it on for a few seconds after closing the lid. But I'll just hit start, and that's just the clockwise function now turning that round. So that's 10%. Obviously nothing's happening now. If you boost that up a bit, so that's 20%, you can see that those frames have still not turned around. Go up to 30% and you see them get flung out. So they're probably 80% of the way flung out now. Go to 40% and that's all the way out now. So the early modes of the heather function that I use, this is kind of the speed that you want to get the very, very beginnings of the frames and the honey and the combs out. And yeah, so that's all it is. And then obviously hit stop and it gives you a good indication of how these come back to the centre like that. So I'll just show you that in another direction. So obviously, yep, extractor spins both ways as most extractors will. 10% there, take it up to 40% again. And you get that noise, which means that everything's engaged and working correctly. Don't think that's a kind of default or a defect. So yeah, that is how the swing cage basket works. Obviously, you can go all the way up, get that speed going nice and up. That's 100% now. Still working up to that top speed. But you know what I mean, you can see with this extractor, it's so well built. It really is absolutely solid. It throws so much honey out. I really, really like this machine. And then you see, if we just hit stop and open it like that, you'll see that mechanism. It's still throwing those cages out, and then as it slows down, they want to kind of come back towards radial direction, only being held there by those food-grade stainless steel springs. So yeah, that's it. That's how it works. in, um, the swing cage basket mode. So then to take the swing cages out, really, really simple. Um, you just disconnect the springs and the cages literally just pop out. So I'll take all the cages out now. And that's it, it's done. Doesn't take long, a couple of minutes max. It's just popping those springs off that takes a little bit of time. And now that is a radial extractor again. So I love the versatility of this kit, and that's the reason that I bought it. So let's have a go and I'll show you how it works using it to extract honey radially. Right, so that's it now set up to use as a radial extractor. Quick thing to say at this point is that if you're umming and ahhing between getting the 24-frame Radial plus 6-frame swing extractor versus the 30-frame radial. I mean, this is the 30-frame radial. It is exactly the same extractor. All they've done is just welded a couple of eyelets in to take the swing cage baskets, but it does mean that you lose 6 frames of your radial capacity extracting radially. So if you're not ever going to extract any heather honey, like you just don't live anywhere near it and you don't need that, I definitely recommend going for the 30-frame radial. It's considerably cheaper and you get the extra 6 frames, so you get kind of— it's more efficient when you're doing your radial extraction. Obviously, if you're going to do some heather honey or anything that you want to extract tangentially, then the option is there to have that as well. So I would go with this if you're going to do some heather honey as well. The sums do stack up as opposed to having a 30-frame plus a separate one for your heather honey. I think this is a really good kind of like mid-range extractor, gives you the benefit of both worlds. So that's it set up now for 24 frames. So we'll get up, give you a couple of close-ups, and show you how that works again. So there you go, there's the 24 frames, and you can see, do you know what I mean, every— on every kind of 6th, uh, of here, there's a missing frame. So there should be 5 on each of these. There is in fact only 4, because the missing one is where the connector for the swing cage basket goes. But you mean 24 frames, Absolutely full of honey, you will get so much honey pouring out of this machine. Like I say, make sure the first go or so you leave it at the base so it keeps the weight and the ballast at the bottom, stops it shaking around. So again, just hit start. Take it up through the speeds, 25%, 40%, 50%. 60%. Now, when I'm working radially, what I will do is I will fill it up and I'll put it to about 40%. So it takes me a while to uncap all the frames. So because I'm using the uncapping machine to go along with it, I will take the extractor, leave it at 40%, and I'll just leave it running for a while. While I'm doing some more frames. And then when I get to kind of like 8 frames, I'll stop it and I'll change the function to 40% in the other direction. Now, there are automatic modes on this extractor that work, but it doesn't give me the kind of bespoke functions that I require and the timing. Do you know what I mean? I'm right next to it anyway, so it's no effort. So then after I kind of, I get to like 12 or 14 frames uncapping, I'll bring it up to like 60%. And that's when most of the honey's starting to come out now. But that— So that's the machine there running at 70% now. That's pretty much as high as I'd take it on a radial extraction. You really don't need to go much higher than that. You could probably go up to 80%, but you introduce a little bit of wobble. Now, I could quite easily deal with that by putting some casters on or by bolting it down, but I like there to be a little bit of movement on there, and I know that my frames come out really, really dry. When the machine's running at about 70% like that. So that's about what I run it at. Now, the reason that's shaking a little bit more than normal is because I'm not extracting honey frames in there. You need— the frames need the ability to be able to balance themselves. So if you start off full of honey, then they chuck out as much as they need in order to balance. If you're starting off just kind of chucking in empty frames like I've just done there, there's no way for it to balance. So you will get a bit of wobble. So it doesn't wobble as much as that in real life. So here's the control panel, a little bit dirty because it's at the end of extraction. Obviously you've got your start and your stop. Here is where you control the percentage, so up and down for the percentage, and then you can run through the settings here. So 1 is clockwise, P1 is clockwise, P2 is anti-clockwise, so you have a left and a right, and then P3 to P 8 is the automatic settings. P7 is the one that I use for heather honey extraction. So that's it for the video and the review and the demonstration of the Lyson 24-frame radial and 6-frame swing cage extractor. Definitely a recommendation for me to get one of these. But like I say, if you're not going to use that swing basket function, opt for the 30-frame version instead. Considerably cheaper, and you get the extra efficiency because you get an additional 6 frames, so you get an additional 25% capacity. In your extractor. So I hope you've enjoyed the video. That pretty much wraps up all of our honey extraction videos for this year, but don't worry, we're back next year doing lots more of the same videos with different spins and different tweaks on them. So stay tuned for lots more videos to come. So I hope you've enjoyed this one. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time. Bye.