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Reply To: | Glen B. Glater |
Date: | Fri, 22 Sep 1995 12:28:34 EDT |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
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Marc:
You said:
>I have an electric knife/scraper that looks more like some type of cheese
>knife. It works fine for the first 3 frames, then becomes completely sticky
>and the wax/honey begin to burn, creating a carbon crust all over it. The
>crust is a great insulator, and the knife can never get quite hot enough to
>to a good job afterwards. What do BWE (beekeepers with experience) suggest
>I do? I have 5 hives, a small operation. I'm not willing to spend millions
>on new fancy equipment. Is there a better way to use the same knife, or are
>there better tools? Is a steam knife better?
Well, I know that other's experiences may vary, but I can say that I
have had absolutely *terrible* experiences with electric knives. We
tried one again last week at our extraction and it was, IMHO,
worthless.
What I prefer is to keep a pan of water hot and keep 2 decapping
knives in the water. I use one for a while, and when it gets too
cool, I put it back in the pan and use the other. While #2 cools, #1
warms back up again.
It works *great* and I don't have to deal with the funky
thermoregulation on the electric knife. I also don't have to worry
about putting the knife down somewhere that I don't want hot knives to
be (our honey house is also a real house, and we use the kitchen for
the extraction... :-)
We were extracting from 3 hives, so our "operation" is a bit smaller
than yours, but it worked great.
--glen
**************************************************************
Midnight Networks Inc. * 200 Fifth Avenue * Waltham, MA 02154
Glen B. Glater Principal, Strategic Networking Group
Phone: (617) 890-1001 Fax: (617) 890-0028
Internet: [log in to unmask] http://www.midnight.com/~glen
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