Honey Extractor 4/8 frames LEGROC®

01 · ONE FACE AT A TIME

Why dense honey calls for a tangential

In a radial the frame is held only at its ends and the force pulls on both faces at once. With heather, eucalyptus or any thick honey, and with brood wax that is already a few years old, that pull is what breaks the comb. Here the frame lies flat against the grid and only the outer face is emptied, so it comes out whole and goes back to the hive without repair.

The price is the turning: you take the frame out, flip it and spin again. As an order of magnitude, a manual four-frame tangential moves somewhere around 150-200 kg a day with one operator who is also uncapping. It is not a machine figure: it depends on uncapping, viscosity and the temperature of the room.

02 · THE BASKET HEIGHT DECIDES

You choose by centimetres, not by hive name

It takes 4 brood frames or 8 half-super frames, two per slot. What decides is not the hive model but how tall the frame is: Dadant brood frames are 27 cm, Langstroth and Perfección 20 cm, and half-supers 13 cm. All of those fit with room to spare.

Layens is the case to check. Its frame is 35 × 30 cm, and the motorised model from this same maker takes up to 290 mm in height, which leaves Layens out. For this model the maker does not publish the usable basket height: if you work Layens, confirm it before ordering rather than assuming.

03 · THE 304 AND THE CONICAL BASE

What touches the honey is stainless; the legs are not

Body, cage, gears, crank and tap are 304 stainless steel in 0.8 mm sheet. The legs are the exception: iron with anti-corrosion treatment, removable. Worth knowing, because they are precisely the part that lives on the wet floor of the honey house.

The base is conical and domed, so the honey runs down to the tap on its own and there is no tilting the drum for the last kilo. The tap is Ø 40 mm, the size of the honey line, and welded 370 mm off the floor: a 25 kg bucket goes underneath with room to spare.

04 · THE BRAKE IS IN THE CRANK

You stop it by turning back, not by grabbing the drum

Turning the crank against the direction of rotation makes the mechanism act as a brake, and the drum comes to a progressive stop with no jerking. That is what removes the reflex of putting a hand in or leaning on a loaded basket to stop it.

The lid is clear polycarbonate with a magnetic catch: you see what is happening inside, it does not yellow and it opens without dismantling anything.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Compatibility is checked with a tape measure, not with the name of the hive.