It looks and feels like a solid, well made, machine that should last a long time. The overall quality, rigidity and finish of the stainless steel is excellent. Half of the perspex (?) lid hinges up to add and remove frames for extraction, in doing so the motor safety cut-out (red and black in the image on the right) is engaged. The top and bottom sections are joined by stainless steel rods. In this model the top and bottom sections are moulded out of some sort of plastic or resin, rather than being constructed from stainless steel. The other clear cost-saving is the cage for the frames. It was close enough to collect, so I wasn’t committed to purchasing until I’d checked the quality. I finally purchased a Saf Natura Ritmo extractor from Bee Equipped in Derbyshire. Abelo sell 8 frame tangential and 12 frame radial models, but there were some rough edges on the stainless steel barrel of the model I inspected which put me off. I looked carefully Abelo extractors on show at the Yorkshire Beekeepers Association Spring meeting. The Thorne’s polythene-barreled model has a list price of approaching £800. All the standard suppliers sell these, at prices – for a 9 frame radial model – ranging from about £600 to £1600. The machine had been used pretty hard by the association and would have become increasingly difficult to properly clean, so I wanted a stainless steel machine. I was convinced about the capacity and the motor but disappointed about the signs of wear on the polythene barrel. Why a Saf Natura extractor?Īfter outgrowing my manual four frame tangential extractor I’d borrowed a polythene-barreled radial 9 frame motorised Thorne’s extractor from our association. You can often retro-fit motors to manual models, but I have no experience of this. For the model I discuss below the price differential between the manual and motorised version is about £280. Remember that if you’re handling 20 or so supers you will already be moving about 1000 lb. of boxes around, before you start extracting, often in a warm room. My manual tangential model was hard work after a couple of dozen frames. Unless you’re built like Charles Atlas, or want to be, I would strongly recommend a motorised extractor if you’re considering a 9 frame or larger model. Since I extract twice per year (OSR and late summer) from about 18-24 supers (~200+ frames each time) and don’t intend to scale up I’ve decided a 9 frame extractor will suit me for the foreseeable future. This has been extensively discussed elsewhere. Small or large extractors (in terms of number of frames) take about the same time to extract the honey per spin, so buy a larger model if you want to spend less time extracting. This is my second machine … the first being a 4-frame Lega manual tangential model which, although excellent quality, was simply too small for the number of colonies (~10) I now have. I’m certainly not well organised and often have to fit extraction around inflexible work commitments … Extractor size – 3, 4, 9, 18 frame? If you’re flexible about when you can extract, or well organised, you might be able to share with friends or use the association machine(s). You may not need to buy an extractor at all. Book the machine in good time and keep the removed supers warm to make extraction easier. If your association is reasonably large it’s likely that demand will be high as the OSR finishes – honey must be extracted promptly or it will crystallise in the comb. Try before you buy … borrow one from another beekeeper or, if your association owns one or more, book or hire one for a weekend to see how it suits your beekeeping needs. Actually, that should have started “ an extractor” because a well-chosen machine that suits your beekeeping should last a very long time. I hope it’s useful to others thinking of purchasing a machine.Įxtractors are probably the single most expensive item purchased by the majority of beekeepers. This is a review of a 9 frame radial motorised Saf Natura Ritmo extractor, prompted by a recent discussion on the SBAi forum and the absence of many other reviews when I was researching the purchase.
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