Royal Jelly Vacuum Harvester

01 · HOW IT WORKS

The vacuum does the work, not an impeller

The motor unit sits in the base of the case and draws air out of the gasketed stainless jar. As the pressure inside drops, jelly is pulled from the cell through the cannula, along the hose and into the jar. The hose is flexible and non-collapsible, and that is the part holding the vacuum: a soft tube flattens under suction and the pull is lost on the way.

02 · POWER SUPPLY

220 V in the honey house, 12 V at the apiary

The unit carries a transformer and pump protection, and takes both voltages: 220 V mains when you harvest under a roof, and 12 V from a cigarette-lighter socket when you work out in the field. It is the question we are asked most often about this machine, and the short answer is that no generator is needed: an ordinary socket or the vehicle battery will do.

03 · COMPATIBILITY

Works with any cup system, because it goes inside the cell

The cannula draws from inside the queen cell, so it does not depend on the rearing system you use: Nicot, JZBZ, Jenter or wax cups are all the same to it. What it does require is the usual order of work, open the cell and lift the larva out before suction. It does no grafting and removes no larvae, and moves jelly only: this is no honey or syrup pump.

04 · CLEANING

Opaque jar, and into the cold as soon as you close it

Royal jelly is heat-sensitive and light-sensitive: its properties start to shift within hours at room temperature, and it belongs at 0-5 °C and in the dark from the moment of suction. The stainless jar is already opaque, so it doubles as the working container until the fridge. Hose, cannula and jar get washed the moment you finish: dried jelly inside the hose is far harder to shift.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is production kit, not starter kit: if you harvest one bar a year, a hand spatula does the same job for pennies. The harvester pays off on volume, and the arithmetic is worth doing first: at roughly 0.3 g per cell, a double bar of 66 cups yields on the order of 20 g. Nor is it a flow pump, so expect no litres-per-hour figure; our own field reference with a trained operator is around 240 g in an hour, down to their hands more than the motor.