Bee-Liners;

I am working on a short term job in Malawi (East Africa) with a very beginning honey processing industry,  The project here has sought to teach indigenous people to value forests and other natural resources by introducing beekeeping and other skills that enable local people to use the forests as sustainable resources.  To make a long a story short, introduction of top bar beekeeping has worked, and they have in excess of 50 tons of forest honey on hand.  The big problem here is poor honey quality coming from the beekeeper.  The beekeepers harvest at night.  Remember, African bees, poor protective equipment and smokers, as well as co-mingling brood and pollen with honey combs).  Now they 'extract' the honey by pressing combs or by letting it drip through coarse cloth into a bucket, with poor efficiency and some really dirty honey.We are stuck with using top bar hives for the time being.  Before I came out I built a 'bush' honey extractor - see www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2005/september/honeyextractor.htm out of a plastic 50 gallon food grade barrel, two bicycle wheels, a steel rod drive shaft and some other common parts. You set the wheels on a shaft and let the wheels act as the extractor reel.   I drove it with a 1/2 inch drill and extracted 6 supers of honey last weekend.  It worked like a charm until I wore out the cheap bearings, but I got 4 - 5 gallon buckets of very nice honey out of it.

I am thinking what we might try here is a 'bush cappings spinner', to wit:, grind the honey combs from the top bar hives and spin the ground wax/honey mixture in a hand cranked cappings spinner.  My thought is to enclose the extractor basket in heavy wire mesh and slowly feed in the crushed comb mixture to get even distribution.  Can someone send me a photo of a cappings spinner so I can show these people?  Any ideas on a simple grinder for honey combs?  I thought of the old apple grinder and press I inherited from my grandfather, but would like to spin the gound up mixture rather than press it.

Any, and I mean ANY help or ideas appreciated

Bill Lord
ususally of Louisburg, NC USA
courrently, Blantyre Malawi

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