Sugar Mill for beekeeping 150 kg/h

01 · WHY MILL THE SUGAR

Warm water instead of hot

A fine sugar crystal has far more contact surface than a coarse one, and that changes two things in the workshop. First, the syrup dissolves much sooner. Second, and more important, you can work with warm water instead of hot: and since HMF forms when sugar is heated, milling is the cheapest way to keep it low. Along the way, the syrup comes out with no sediment and does not crystallise in the feeders.

02 · FOR THE PATTIES

Mixes that bind and do not crumble

In patties the difference shows at the mixing stage. Icing sugar binds with flours, yeasts and liquids into an even, workable paste that portions and lays without crumbling; with coarse crystal the mix stays gritty and breaks up. And in the hive, bees make poor use of large dry crystal: the finer the sugar, the less work it is for them to take it.

03 · WHAT THE MACHINE IS LIKE

Two point two kilowatts, all in stainless

The 2.2 kW motor runs at 2,800 rpm and gives continuous milling, without the stops of bench-top machines. Throughput is 100 to 150 kg/h, the scale of an outfit that prepares feed in batches rather than by the hive. The hopper of about 10 kg lets you load and get on with something else, and 304 stainless steel is what makes a machine working with sugar genuinely cleanable between batches.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Two warnings. The 4-5 µm particle size is the manufacturer's figure: it is finer than is usual for commercial icing sugar and we have no analysis of our own to check it against, so it goes as what it is, a stated figure. And sugar powder is fine dust: work somewhere ventilated, with a mask and no ignition sources nearby, as with any flour. Otherwise, this is a 2.2 kW machine: check your workshop supply takes it before buying.