Here is the $12 uncapping fork: amzn.to/2RwJqtT Harmony farms uncapper: amzn.to/2LA2lQW And some of our other favorite tools: www.amazon.com/shop/tennessees-bees (Aff links)
It's refreshing to see someone just being normal, natural, and themself, on a video, Kamon. No second takes. No editing the mistakes. No pretending. Its been a pleasure to follow you both through the year.
That's a nice stack of frames in the background ready to go. Way to be prepared and ahead of the game. Winter chores are very important to get ready and be prepared.
I bought the Harmony Farms uncapper this summer and was pleasantly surprised to find it worked better than I expected. Certainly better on newer or warmer comb, but you soon develop a technique to make efficient use of the device. Personally I really like the finished product coming out of the extractor and felt the comb and wax was better preserved with less waste. The bees seem to repair the comb to a nice uniform state more readily than when I muddle the comb with a rolling uncapper. It takes some strength on fatter or colder frames and I pushed a couple of medium frames too far and they fell into the uncapping tank, but all in all a great addition to my honey house.
That is a LOT of frames!!! Thanks for showing us how this tools works. I really appreciate your demonstrations and how you jump in right on video, just learning as you go. Although it looks quick I’m not sure how much faster then the fork is. Thanks again!
simply put the slicer works fairly well, its always good to have a hand scraper or spiked roller on hand to quickly get low spots or corners it may have missed, but overall it is far cheaper than a chain uncapper or slicer and far Quicker than a hot knife. I think we paid about $400, and we were able to extract a few hundred pounds in a couple hours, I would say it beats a messy slow HOT KNIFE ANY DAY! I will go on to say I built a custom stand I could slide a 2-3 inch deep tray under to catch honey for easy cleanup, I strap it into a box frame with legs. I can load a 30 frame spinner in less than 30 minutes if someone else is pulling the frames out of the boxes for me.
Christmas Honey!!! It would be great if Laura swapped which side of the camera that she’s on, then we could all see where the giggles comes from. Thanks for making the video and Merry Christmas to the Reynolds family!!!
I am ready to see the person behind all those giggles. I just love it when I hear her giggles. She is a great camerawomen! Y’all have a wonderful Christmas & New Year. Love & Hugs from Vicki in Ft. Worth, Texas 🇨🇱🇺🇸👍❤️🐝😁
I'm a small time beek , varies on 20-40 hives and tried that uncapper. Yes it does work but you lose any wax from the cappings. I wanted the wax so I went back to the un heated knife and little scrapper. Good thing too because I lost 18 hive bodies worth of drawn foundation due to wax moths. I pressure washed the mess off and now and using my precious wax to re wax them.
Nice Demo guys! I feared there for awhile that you might slip and shish kabab your left wrist with the uncapping fork, using Laurel's method. That is also the method I use. Thanks for sharing this.
You might try flipping your uncapping fork over and let the fork ride just under the caps, the heel of the fork will ride on the cells, you run three passes on a deep, two passes on a medium and it's 5x faster than scraping. My daughter figured this out a few years ago when she was 7.
Been looking to up grade from my five gallon DIY uncapping bucket and that small uncapping tank that you are using looks like it might be just what I am looking for.
Love your videos. So simple, direct and unaffected. Seems like you and your partner really enjoy the process. Love it. Maybe invest in a better microphone though...
I have one of these that I purchased this season and it works pretty well. The one thing I have found if you have a thinner comb you can tilt it at an angle and it will hit those thinner spots on your frame. As far as extraction goes the majority of the honey does come out. But like you say you have to use a uncapping fork for some places that it just can't get to. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Kamon, the uncapping fork is normally used like your wife seems to do it - you get different ones, with different "wavy" fork "needles". BTW, I would really like to see your normal way of extracting...
One thing us newbies will need reminding or re-visiting is making splits in the Spring or Summer. There has been different approaches written and filmed by different people so your approach next year would be helpful for many of us. Thanks again ! And I bet if we knew your address, you’d get a lot of Christmas Cards !
I use the roller that looks like a hair curler. The problem I have, which is probably the same with what you are using, is wax build up. I find chunks of comb being lifted wholesale from the foundation!
We use the uncapping fork and use it like Laurel does. It removes the wax cleanly and we end up with much less wax in our extractor and much less to clog the sieves when draining the honey. We tried one of the needle roller perforator uncappers. It was fast but the amount of wax in our extractor was crazy and the sieves clogged real fast when draining. I wonder if the uncapper you are demonstrating would do the same thing since little wax is removed?
Danny I can't really say since I have never used one. It would take alot of beeswax and honey slung out to pay one off. I need one but I am limping along with out for as long as I can
Great video. I always enjoy your explanations. How about one that explains wax processing. I have about 450 hives. Not yet found a wax processing system for small operations.
We are still doing it the hard way with an old Kelley cappings melter and I literally have barrels of unrendered wax that needs to be melted down. I plan on buying a capping spinner in the near future.
it looks like if you angle the frame one way going down n then angle the other direction coming back up,, it would squeeze the top of caps alittle have you tried that does it seem to work better then just going straight down n then up,,awesome job thank you for knowledge
Kamon, Have you ever tried using the needle rollers? They look very fast and accurate, and don't seem to tear up the comb. They don't cost much, so if they work as described, might make for a great video, if you have time.
In a room with low humidity. There is nothing but honey on these frames. Wax moths and beetles don't like eating just straight honey. They want beebread and brood. This had neither and low humidity helped alot as well
I lost my first hive part my fault and then the other is just confusing. So I'm in northern Kentucky and we have had a couple warm day and the girls were out and about but I noticed one hive was not active, but I thought well they have a lot of resources so I didn't check in on it until yesterday and I opened it up to find them all dead. They had made a new queen late and she never mated. I feel so bad I didn't catch it sooner. Sorry for sharing this on this video. I don't know how I feel about just scoring the caps but I have never tried it so my comment is not worth much.
We must be related. That's what my dad always said about work not hurting anybody too! He always would tell me when I was standing something for him to "put a little elbow grease into it"! If he was still around I would ask him where the greasezerk is so I can lube up my elbow cuz they hurt! Lol Guess you can tell I was daddy's girl! :)
well thet honeye woud never a made it ta the video cause ai wouda played a whinny the poo on it, won of me favorite sweets, thank the MRS. fer bein patience wit ya thank ya fer the video
I would have it away from the bees a bit. This way you don't draw any towards your hives. However, it may not make a difference where you place it I don't really know
Kamon, have you had any issues with the rollers clogging after 10ish frames? I definitely have. If you have had this issue, what are you doing to keep it running without major cleaning.
My wife and I didn't like it so we moved on. It did clog up and we would have to clean it out from time to time with very hot water. Bruce Jenne has way more experience with these than I do. His channel is Bruce's bees
Do the rollers fit between the frame side bars or extend the full width of the frame? I assume if the rollers fit WITHIN the frame side bars, they can 'squeeze in' on thinner combs and perforate them. Neat contraption. I rake my combs with a fork and it works well enough for now....but this uncapper may be in my future! Thanks Kamon.....and Laurel:)!
Have you ever used the Manley straight frames for honey? Had a beekeeper telling me they were better for uncapping because the sides were straight. Thanks
Common sense: "The wife is always right!" Are you or have you made any videos on making cheap mating nucs? Especially the bottoms with an entrance??? I have a lot of 4 frame boxes to convert. Thinking of just slapping a piece of wood then add a hole in the box.
Huh? You can store them indefinitely. A pest-proof room can store all the hunny until you need it. 6 months, though? My OCD would have kicked in before 4th of July.
Would u recommend using this for fat frames or is it too tight to use on every fat frame? Considered one before,looks really handy glad u did video on it
I have yet to seem a fat frame it didn't take but I haven't tried exceptionally big combs on it. I bet it would work it would just crush the heck out of the combs.
@@kamonreynolds Fat frames are fine. The issue I ran into were frames that weren't drawn out evenly, or had some crazy comb like the second on in your video. Those need the high spots cut off with a knife first, but I just used the needle roller on those and moved on.
Man you waited until the weather got cold to extract, cold honey is hard to extract, here we extract as we go, our honey is way too thick to extract in cooler months. Keep smiling you are doing a great job.
Well C I will tell you this I can see by your adatude you need to have a contest and give that thing away as a winner . I won't get rid of my Cowyn for any reason . Rob.
I wouldn't. A knife is fast enough for 6 hives. Plus all of those thin pieces of wax will clog you bucket strainers. Best to cut the wax off in sheets. A pierce cold knife or hot knife works well
I don't. I purchased it to do a video review. It does a pretty good job cutting the cells but I hate all the tiny pieces of wax that can clog a filter so fast! I would talk to Bruce Jenne with Bruce's bees on UA-cam. He uses 2 of them
Here is the $12 uncapping fork:
amzn.to/2RwJqtT
Harmony farms uncapper: amzn.to/2LA2lQW
And some of our other favorite tools:
www.amazon.com/shop/tennessees-bees
(Aff links)
9:36 Why take the risk ? you never know ...
It's refreshing to see someone just being normal, natural, and themself, on a video, Kamon.
No second takes.
No editing the mistakes.
No pretending.
Its been a pleasure to follow you both through the year.
Thanks Beekeeper
That's a nice stack of frames in the background ready to go. Way to be prepared and ahead of the game. Winter chores are very important to get ready and be prepared.
My observation too, Frame envy !!!
I bought the Harmony Farms uncapper this summer and was pleasantly surprised to find it worked better than I expected. Certainly better on newer or warmer comb, but you soon develop a technique to make efficient use of the device. Personally I really like the finished product coming out of the extractor and felt the comb and wax was better preserved with less waste. The bees seem to repair the comb to a nice uniform state more readily than when I muddle the comb with a rolling uncapper. It takes some strength on fatter or colder frames and I pushed a couple of medium frames too far and they fell into the uncapping tank, but all in all a great addition to my honey house.
Thanks so much for sharing!
That is a LOT of frames!!! Thanks for showing us how this tools works. I really appreciate your demonstrations and how you jump in right on video, just learning as you go. Although it looks quick I’m not sure how much faster then the fork is. Thanks again!
Wow, Laurel’s careful on her camera angle, thought we might catch her reflection in the windows! Lol
For all you yankees out there, “fixin” = about 😆
Thaaaaannnnnnnks Kamen!!!!!!. Now im going to have to buy my wife one of those Decappers. LOL thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
Don't blame meeee! This was Laurels idea!! Haha thanks
simply put the slicer works fairly well, its always good to have a hand scraper or spiked roller on hand to quickly get low spots or corners it may have missed, but overall it is far cheaper than a chain uncapper or slicer and far Quicker than a hot knife. I think we paid about $400, and we were able to extract a few hundred pounds in a couple hours, I would say it beats a messy slow HOT KNIFE ANY DAY!
I will go on to say I built a custom stand I could slide a 2-3 inch deep tray under to catch honey for easy cleanup, I strap it into a box frame with legs. I can load a 30 frame spinner in less than 30 minutes if someone else is pulling the frames out of the boxes for me.
Christmas Honey!!! It would be great if Laura swapped which side of the camera that she’s on, then we could all see where the giggles comes from. Thanks for making the video and Merry Christmas to the Reynolds family!!!
Good presentation Kamon! Thanks for taking the time to showing us this way of uncapping! The more we learn the better we become.
Nice uncapingmachine
I am ready to see the person behind all those giggles. I just love it when I hear her giggles. She is a great camerawomen! Y’all have a wonderful Christmas & New Year. Love & Hugs from Vicki in Ft. Worth, Texas 🇨🇱🇺🇸👍❤️🐝😁
Good stuff, thank you!
Also, great shirt!
Would definitely like to see your normal extraction system that you use for the amount of hives you run. Thanks Kamon!
Love her giggles in the background.
Have had the Harmony uncapper and like it. Lets get Laurel on camera.
An interesting contraption.
Have a blessed Sunday.
I'm a small time beek , varies on 20-40 hives and tried that uncapper. Yes it does work but you lose any wax from the cappings. I wanted the wax so I went back to the un heated knife and little scrapper. Good thing too because I lost 18 hive bodies worth of drawn foundation due to wax moths. I pressure washed the mess off and now and using my precious wax to re wax them.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
This is very helpful, thank you, Kamon!
Nice Demo guys! I feared there for awhile that you might slip and shish kabab your left wrist with the uncapping fork, using Laurel's method. That is also the method I use. Thanks for sharing this.
Still waiting on that video of Laurel cooking Mountain girl biscuits with butter and honey! :-)
I want to see that video also!
You might try flipping your uncapping fork over and let the fork ride just under the caps, the heel of the fork will ride on the cells, you run three passes on a deep, two passes on a medium and it's 5x faster than scraping. My daughter figured this out a few years ago when she was 7.
Guess I'll stick to scratching. That machine saves no time .
Been looking to up grade from my five gallon DIY uncapping bucket and that small uncapping tank that you are using looks like it might be just what I am looking for.
Love your videos. So simple, direct and unaffected. Seems like you and your partner really enjoy the process. Love it.
Maybe invest in a better microphone though...
I'm looking forward to seeing how they all spin out!
I have one of these that I purchased this season and it works pretty well. The one thing I have found if you have a thinner comb you can tilt it at an angle and it will hit those thinner spots on your frame. As far as extraction goes the majority of the honey does come out. But like you say you have to use a uncapping fork for some places that it just can't get to. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing as well!
Hi Kamon, the uncapping fork is normally used like your wife seems to do it - you get different ones, with different "wavy" fork "needles". BTW, I would really like to see your normal way of extracting...
One thing us newbies will need reminding or re-visiting is making splits in the Spring or Summer. There has been different approaches written and filmed by different people so your approach next year would be helpful for many of us. Thanks again ! And I bet if we knew your address, you’d get a lot of Christmas Cards !
We will be doing some different types of splits for sure! Thanks Michael and Merry Christmas
Nice machine.
Kamon, Great info. Keep it coming. Be careful with the uncapping fork. Using Laurel's method is a good way to puncture an artery when the fork slips.
I use the roller that looks like a hair curler. The problem I have, which is probably the same with what you are using, is wax build up. I find chunks of comb being lifted wholesale from the foundation!
I use my uncapping fork like Laurel, but will try your way next time............maybe :)
We use the uncapping fork and use it like Laurel does. It removes the wax cleanly and we end up with much less wax in our extractor and much less to clog the sieves when draining the honey. We tried one of the needle roller perforator uncappers. It was fast but the amount of wax in our extractor was crazy and the sieves clogged real fast when draining. I wonder if the uncapper you are demonstrating would do the same thing since little wax is removed?
Very perceptive!
It's neat, but I think i'll stick with the knife and scaper for now.
Kamon do you use a waxs spinner. If so .it it worth the investment. Thank. Keep up the good work
Danny I can't really say since I have never used one. It would take alot of beeswax and honey slung out to pay one off. I need one but I am limping along with out for as long as I can
Cool uncapper. Wanting one but kinda pricey. Guess I’ll be doing it the old fashioned way a few more years
Keep the videos coming
Great video. I always enjoy your explanations. How about one that explains wax processing. I have about 450 hives. Not yet found a wax processing system for small operations.
We are still doing it the hard way with an old Kelley cappings melter and I literally have barrels of unrendered wax that needs to be melted down. I plan on buying a capping spinner in the near future.
Cranes making that noise we don't have em up here in Pa very much
it looks like if you angle the frame one way going down n then angle the other direction coming back up,, it would squeeze the top of caps alittle have you tried that does it seem to work better then just going straight down n then up,,awesome job thank you for knowledge
Angling the frames does help for sure
Kamon, Have you ever tried using the needle rollers? They look very fast and accurate, and don't seem to tear up the comb. They don't cost much, so if they work as described, might make for a great video, if you have time.
How did you store the frames? That uncapper looks great. It gets 95% of it uncapped. But the uncapping fork works great too.
In a room with low humidity. There is nothing but honey on these frames. Wax moths and beetles don't like eating just straight honey. They want beebread and brood. This had neither and low humidity helped alot as well
Show us Laurel! Show us Laurel!...
Thanks Kamon ! You still haven’t told us if your honey is available for sale some where.
Hey Michael. We ship, and have folks sell it for us in various stores in Cookeville TN and the surrounding areas
Good to know - what is you “brand” or name so we’ll know when we see one of your bottles
@@michaelclancy3644 Tennessees bees nothing fancy but we are working on a new label.
I lost my first hive part my fault and then the other is just confusing. So I'm in northern Kentucky and we have had a couple warm day and the girls were out and about but I noticed one hive was not active, but I thought well they have a lot of resources so I didn't check in on it until yesterday and I opened it up to find them all dead. They had made a new queen late and she never mated. I feel so bad I didn't catch it sooner. Sorry for sharing this on this video. I don't know how I feel about just scoring the caps but I have never tried it so my comment is not worth much.
You are up early 😁
I found it gradually clogs up the aluminium discs
Dude! How many frames do you have?!!!
8-9000 I'd guess maybe more
We must be related. That's what my dad always said about work not hurting anybody too! He always would tell me when I was standing something for him to "put a little elbow grease into it"! If he was still around I would ask him where the greasezerk is so I can lube up my elbow cuz they hurt! Lol
Guess you can tell I was daddy's girl! :)
well thet honeye woud never a made it ta the video cause ai wouda played a whinny the poo on it, won of me favorite sweets, thank the MRS. fer bein patience wit ya thank ya fer the video
Show, parabéns
Going to put out yellow jacket traps. Is it better to place them away from your hives, close to the hives or both?
I would have it away from the bees a bit. This way you don't draw any towards your hives. However, it may not make a difference where you place it I don't really know
Kamon, have you had any issues with the rollers clogging after 10ish frames? I definitely have. If you have had this issue, what are you doing to keep it running without major cleaning.
My wife and I didn't like it so we moved on. It did clog up and we would have to clean it out from time to time with very hot water. Bruce Jenne has way more experience with these than I do. His channel is Bruce's bees
Turn it around the second time. Maybe it’s the way your facing it, maybe???
No excuses. Get back to work! More videos.
Lol
When you put that back in the hive.... so they get the remaining honey... do they use that as a foundation?
Oh yes they repair the combs and use them perfectly.
Like the shirt!
Do the rollers fit between the frame side bars or extend the full width of the frame? I assume if the rollers fit WITHIN the frame side bars, they can 'squeeze in' on thinner combs and perforate them. Neat contraption. I rake my combs with a fork and it works well enough for now....but this uncapper may be in my future! Thanks Kamon.....and Laurel:)!
Thanks !! But I got to thinking I am a winner with very video I get to see. I hope to see you come nuc time !!
Have you ever used the Manley straight frames for honey? Had a beekeeper telling me they were better for uncapping because the sides were straight. Thanks
Hey David no I have never tried one before. Perhaps in the future!
Which brand of smoker you like best?
Mine has been causing problems, I’m havin trouble adjusting!
Kamon, which would you recommend more- the Pierce Hot knife or this Simple Harmony? Secondly, did you ever decide if you want to do 8 or 9 frames?
Hey Kamon, How many frames do you have stacked behind you? One of my winter projects is to make 450 medium frames from scrap 2x4... Stu
I don't know how many are there. Not very many. Perhaps 120?
Kamon....Have you ever tried the Heat Gun method? thoughts?
I have not but that would be a great video idea!
I was cringing when he mashed up those 3 super-seizure queen cells.
Hi Kamon, I was curious what tank are you using? Is it a sink ?
It is the smallest Mann lake uncapping tank.
Common sense: "The wife is always right!"
Are you or have you made any videos on making cheap mating nucs? Especially the bottoms with an entrance??? I have a lot of 4 frame boxes to convert. Thinking of just slapping a piece of wood then add a hole in the box.
I will get to that! What you are doing sounds like it would work though!
Looks like you have to apply quite a bit of pressure to get those frames down between the rollers is that true?
Hi Nancy, Yes it does take a decent bit but it is not too bad.
How much did you pay for this uncapper? and where did you buy it from? The only I could only find it for $350, seems really high priced
I have to ask how did you store them frames so that the honey would be ok till now?
Huh? You can store them indefinitely. A pest-proof room can store all the hunny until you need it. 6 months, though? My OCD would have kicked in before 4th of July.
Out in a room with the humidity controlled
@@kamonreynolds yep. I neglected to mention the dehumidifiers running to the floor drain. That's pretty important. Lol
Would u recommend using this for fat frames or is it too tight to use on every fat frame? Considered one before,looks really handy glad u did video on it
I have yet to seem a fat frame it didn't take but I haven't tried exceptionally big combs on it. I bet it would work it would just crush the heck out of the combs.
@@kamonreynolds that's what I figured,those things look awful handy though
@@kamonreynolds Fat frames are fine. The issue I ran into were frames that weren't drawn out evenly, or had some crazy comb like the second on in your video. Those need the high spots cut off with a knife first, but I just used the needle roller on those and moved on.
Young comb? Is it softer? Why is it easier?
Hey Ray the cappings are a bit softer and the cell walls thinner
Man you waited until the weather got cold to extract, cold honey is hard to extract, here we extract as we go, our honey is way too thick to extract in cooler months. Keep smiling you are doing a great job.
Well C I will tell you this I can see by your adatude you need to have a contest and give that thing away as a winner . I won't get rid of my Cowyn for any reason . Rob.
Kamon, looking for a good source for honey bottles? at a good price? any help would be nice
Would you recommend this for someone with 6 hives?
I wouldn't. A knife is fast enough for 6 hives. Plus all of those thin pieces of wax will clog you bucket strainers. Best to cut the wax off in sheets. A pierce cold knife or hot knife works well
How does it work on foundationless frames
Hey J Arnold. I haven't tried one but I imagine it would be tedious on a deep frame. Perhaps it would work well on a medium or shallow frame.
Can you tell me what size o rings the machine takes? Mine broke.
Witam kolego gdzie i kto takie wałki produkuje i sprzedaję ??????Proszę odpisz!!!
Too much wax left behind
Do you still use this?
I don't. I purchased it to do a video review.
It does a pretty good job cutting the cells but I hate all the tiny pieces of wax that can clog a filter so fast! I would talk to Bruce Jenne with Bruce's bees on UA-cam. He uses 2 of them