The ball valves that Tim spoke of are available from
any plumbing supply house in a handy (and cheap!)
plastic version, which may wear out over time, but
can be replaced about 10 times and still be cheaper
than a brass valve.

If you look at the bee supply catalogs, they offer
very expensive brass valves with long actuator arms
to be hooked to a foot pedal.  One might be able to
kludge up a similar mechanism with a plumbing-store
ball valve, plastic or metal.  I'd use a counterweight
rather than a spring to close the valve, but either
will work.

I like electrically operated valves, but I got mine
cheap from a contractor that does industrial work.
I built a timer for it that allows one to adjust it
to exactly fill a container with the press of a button,
but I must fiddle with the timer to account for
temperature (and hence honey viscosity) and the
basic viscosity of the honey itself, which can vary
a bit from pail to pail or (drum to drum).

        jim (Terror Alert Level ORANGE!
           Orange you scared?)

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