There are several ways to extract honey.  All the methods have good points.  They also all have problems.

No matter which method you use, be sure the place you work is clean and free of dirt.  Make sure your hands and fingernails are clean.  Tie back your hair.  Do not smoke or chew betel nut while you extract.  You do not want to put dirt in the honey.  Honey is food and must be kept very clean.

1.  Using an Extractor:

This is one of the easiest and fastest ways to take the honey out of the cells.  You need some special and expensive equipment to use this method.

Before you put the frames into the extractor you need to remove the wax caps from the frames. This lets the honey come out.  You can buy a special uncapping knife to do this or you can use 2 bread knives.  Have one bread knife sitting in hot water while you use the other one.  When the one you are using has cooled, switch knives.  Make sure you dry the one sitting in hot water with a towel or calico before you use it.   You do not want to put water into your honey.  Put the cooled knife in the hot water to heat up.

To uncap the wax seals or caps  Put a nail in a board so the pointed end sticks up through the board.  Place the board over a large basin. Rest one end bar of the frame on the pointed end of the nail.  Hold the top bar of the frame towards you and start from the top.  Use a steady gentle sawing motion as you cut downwards.  With practise and with good, well filled frames of honey you can cut most of the wax caps off in one motion.   You may have to go back and cut open places that you missed.  Try not to cut too deep.  The more wax you leave on the comb, the less wax the bees will have to make when you give the empty frames back to them.  The basin will catch the wax caps and the honey when you cut the caps off the frame.  The wax caps will still have plenty of honey in them that you can squeeze out later.  Turn the frame around and cut the wax caps off of the other side.

When the wax caps are off both sides of the frame, put it in the wire baskets of the extractor. When all the wire baskets in the extractor have uncapped frames in them, spin the frames using the hand crank on the extractor.  After you have spun the extractor for about 20 or 30 seconds, turn the frames around and spin out the honey on the other side.   With some extractors you must remove the frames and turn them around to spin them again to get the honey out of the other side.

When you have finished spinning the frames they may look a little wet.  You will not get all of the honey out of the frames.  Give the wet frames back to the bees as soon as possible.  Use the records you made of how many frames of honey that you took from each hive to know how many empty frames you need to put back.  The bees will be excited to get the frames back.  They will start to fill the frames with honey again.

You will now have some honey in the bottom of the extractor.  Open the honey gate or valve on the extractor and let it pour through a strainer into buckets to store.  This will remove the pieces of wax or bee parts that may have been left when you extracted the honey.  Some people like to strain the honey through a piece of very clean calico to get out even the smallest bits of dirt or wax.

After you have finished extracting, take the wax you have uncapped and squeeze it through a strainer or calico to remove the honey. This “dry” wax can then be washed, dried and stored.

2.  Using a Spoon:

If you do not have an extracting machine, you can take the honey out of the frames with a spoon. Hold the frame the same way as you would if you were cutting the wax caps off with a knife.  This time you use a spoon and carefully scrape the wax and honey into a basin. Only scrape in as far as the wax foundation sheet or you will make holes in the wax that will spoil your frame.

Put the wax and honey scrapings into a strainer (or wrap it in a piece of very clean calico) and squeeze the honey out of the wax.

You do not need expensive equipment for this method, but you may damage your wax frames.  These are very expensive to replace.  The bees must make beeswax to build out the cells that you destroyed when you spooned out the honey.  The bees must eat a lot of honey to make new wax, so you won’t get as much honey in a year.  This method is also messy and sticky.   It is hard work to get all the honey out of the wax.

3.  Using a Press:

This is another method where wax must be damaged to remove the honey from the comb.

• Cut the wax from the frame.

• Remove the wires from the wax.

• Wrap the pieces of honeycomb in calico.

• Squeeze the comb in the calico to break the wax.

• Twist or wring the calico to press the honey through the cloth. You need 2 people to twist the calico hard enough to get the honey out of the comb. It is faster if you make a wooden press to squeeze out most of the wax.

• Strain the honey and put it in a large, covered, airtight container for a few days. Any extra bits of wax or pollen will float to the top of the honey. Remove these bits before storing the honey.

Pressing your honey is messy and sticky. You cannot remove all of the honey from the wax.  The biggest disadvantage to both the spoon and press methods is that you must break or damage the honeycomb.  It takes the bees much time and energy to replace this lost wax.