Manual Honey Press ApiTek®

01 · PRESSED HONEY IS A CATEGORY

Broodless combs and 45 °C at most

European honey law distinguishes drained, extracted and pressed honey, and defines the last as the one obtained by compressing broodless combs, with no applied heat or with moderate heating of up to 45 °C.

Two concrete conditions, and both easy to miss: comb with brood in it does not qualify, and if you warm it past those 45 °C to make it run, neither does the honey.

02 · THE TWO JOBS

Cappings, and combs that cannot be spun

The first is recovering the honey trapped in the cappings, which over a season is kilos. The wax cake left in the basket then goes to the melter.

The second has no alternative: combs from a Warré or a Kenyan top-bar hive have no wired frame and will not survive an extractor. Pressing is the only way to get the honey out of them.

03 · WHAT COMES OUT

Cloudier to begin with, and at another pace

Pressed honey carries more pollen and more fine wax than extracted honey, so it wants time in a settling tank and a strain before jarring: foam and wax rise on their own if you give them time.

And it is slow. A 25 cm basket is a modest load and the force comes from your arm: this is a tool for small batches, not for a whole season.

04 · THE MACHINE

Stainless where the honey touches

The perforated basket, the plate and the screw are stainless steel; the frame is painted steel. The collecting tray is 37 × 30 × 3 cm with the outlet flush with the bottom, which is what lets you leave it draining into a bucket on its own.

At 88 cm high you work standing up, and with a 45.5 × 40.5 cm footprint it asks for its own corner in the honey house.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is an arm-powered press: it solves the cappings of a small apiary and the comb that cannot be spun.