A kitchen soup strainer set over the pail works pretty well for a small
extractor, even if the honey is cool. When the strainer finally clogs you
can switch it with a second one, and dump the contents of the clogged one
in with the cappings.  Switching back and forth between the two will keep
things flowing.  One guy up here uses the same at the oulet of his 20-frame
power extr., but it clogs up in no time.  The honey is amazingly quiet when
it overflows (ah, the telltale sound of sticky shoes) ;-)
 
This initial coarse straining gets most of the wax out, and then you can
just seal up the pails.  When it comes time to bottle the honey, you can
warm up each pail, skim the froth off the warm honey, and finally pour it
through nylons or whatever for the fine-straining, if you want.  (Some
customers want their "raw" honey and prefer some bits of stuff in it, as
proof that is is the << real thing >>!)
 
A more usual system for dealing with the output of a larger power extractor
is to run the honey into a clarifier, which is a trough with a set of
baffles arranged across it at different heights.  The honey passes under
and over the baffles and the floating debris is held back.
 
 
 
><<<<<<Does anyone fine-filter honey direct from the extractor?  I only have
>3 hives
>at the moment, but my experience is that honey straight from the extractor
>is
>too cool to run through the finish filter.  It just clogs too
>quickly.>>>>>>
>
>I assume the writer of the above means straining rather than filtering.
>There is a difference.  Straining honey means letting it pass through a
>fine mesh of  cloth or metal under gravity....> <snip>