Extractor advice required please

[The Drone Ranger]

I just want one with a motor
The manual has the sweat pouring off me in the warm extractor room

[GRIZZLY]

D.R. why don't you electrify your extractor ?. Thornes sell the conversion kit - much cheaper than replacing the complete unit.

[The Drone Ranger]

D.R. why don't you electrify your extractor ?. Thornes sell the conversion kit - much cheaper than replacing the complete unit.

Thanks grizzly I will look into that possibility in the closed season

[fatshark]

I'm resurrecting this thread to find out if anyone has experience of the quality of SafNatura extractors - specifically their 9 frame motorised radial units? I'm after a radial SS machine for National supers.

I was (whisper it) shopping for Apidea's from Bee Equipped for Crimbo and noticed their pricing on these extractors. This is a few hundred quid less than the equivalents from Giordan or others, and about £200 less even than the sale prices from Maisemores.

I guess the key questions I'm interested in are the overall quality of construction, whether the design is good (tap at the bottom, with no lip for example), robustness, ease of cleaning, availability of spares (which looks good), can I sneak it onto the premises without the wife noticing etc.?

[Rosie]

I bought an extractor from Bee Equipped about 12 years ago. It was not Safnatura but looked very similiar and it's been faultless. The differences I can see with mine and the SafNatura is that mine has plastic gearing (which I utilised when I later motorised it) as opposed to the steel ones in the new one, and mine has a welded-in honey gate at the bottom where the new one has a plastic one. I see that as a potential problem because I imagine it would be impossible to get the plastic one as low as a welded one. Hence it might be a pain getting the last of the honey out of the bottom.

If no-one else can offer any first hand experience with the machine I would check on the details of the valve mounting.

[fatshark]

Saf Natura extractors … first impressions are very good. I bought one this week from Bee Equipped. The stainless steel is very well finished, with no coarse edges as I've seen on a couple of other models I looked at. The cage is resin. The one they illustrate is the electronic one - programmable - but not the one they sell. Mine has a standard manual motor. Reversible. The honey gate is perhaps a little too high (as Rosie suggests), but tipping the extractor got most of the dregs out. It dealt with ~120 frames yesterday without me so much as breaking sweat