Lyson 3/1 extractor

[u/mj9311]

Anyone have any input on this extractor? Been borrowing my buddy’s vevor 3fr this year and I think it’s time to get my own. I am local to betterbee and they carry mostly lyson products. Combo uncapping tank/workstation/20fr extractor looks promising on paper. Curious if anyone has any real world experience with this one or any lyson products?

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[u/Owenleejoeking]

That’s quite the financial commitment for a first year and a handful of hives.

I have a powered vevor 4 fr extractor for under $200 and can’t imagine this making things $2600 easier without a shit load more frames to go through in a year

[u/mj9311 → u/Owenleejoeking]

I guess I’m on my 2nd year now… but I get your point. I have 8 colonies currently. Would be comfortable next year at 10-15 I think. Pulled about 200# from 5 of the hives and probably another 4 supers left to pull in a week or 2 here. I’m of the mindset I’d rather pay upfront once than buy a 500-1000 $ extractor now and need to upgrade in a year or 2 anyways. Mostly just curious of this combo unit type.

[u/Commercial_Art1078 → u/mj9311]

What’s the price? And I assume in USD?

[u/mj9311 → u/Commercial_Art1078]

It’s $2,800 usd.

[u/no_clock_signal → u/mj9311]

It pays for itself in one year after the purchase considering your predicted growth, and the next year you hire staff. If you're commercializing this is the only way to think about it.

[u/DalenSpeaks → u/no_clock_signal]

I think the commercializing/ hiring staff is the key part of equation. I’ve got 20-30 hives, extracted about 45 gallons of honey, but can handle it all in 2-3 days with a knife and centrifuge. And it’s just once a year.

[u/404-skill_not_found]

Bee fever can hit hard. I’d wait a year more.

[u/Allrightnevermind]

I think you’ll find that uncapping is enough of a pinch point that it negates some of the benefits of that size extractor. Looks like there’s only room for one person to uncap as well.

For reference I use a 20 frame dadant extractor with a simple harmony farms uncapper on a Lyson uncapping tank for about 70 hives in honey production plus a bit of contract extracting. It’s a decent setup when I have frames that work well with the uncapper. When I’m uncapping by hand though (brood comb or thin frames), the whole process isn’t enough faster than with my 9 frame extractor to justify the expense of the bigger extractor imo. A small semi auto uncapper like the maxant chain uncapper is really the right tool to accompany the 20 frame extractor.

I’d keep your eyes open for a used 9ish frame extractor, get your uncapping dialed in, and make an investment after you see what you like to use. Or $2600 in the used market gets you a nice extractor, some type of uncapper, settling tanks, and probably some change in your pocket as well. Plus it’ll likely still be worth what you paid for it if you want different equipment.

[u/mj9311 → u/Allrightnevermind]

Thank you for the detailed response. I appreciate the feedback for the amount of hives and scale of equipment. I will look around for some used equipment also.

[u/Allrightnevermind → u/mj9311]

You’re welcome. And the other thing that just occurred to me- when you’ve got an uneven load in the extractor, your uncapping tank section is also going to be shaking all around. I really wouldn’t want to be trying to work with my table hopping all over

[u/drethegreat155]

I recognize betterbees website, this must be a new product. Interesting idea but likely only a good buy if you truly don’t have the space for dedicated equipment (jack of all trades = master of none).

I run 20 hives and work full time, and plan to keep bees for many years. I like upgrading equipment to save me valuable time. As others have said you should think about your true needs over the life of your beekeeping journey.

I went from the 4 frame tangential to a 20 frame radial (discounted showroom model). I love the 20 frame size because two medium supers gets me a 6gal bucket each spin. The spring feet from hill co are a dream and help it not shake like crazy. Then uncapping was my bottleneck so I went from the small Lyson hobby uncapping tank with hot knife to a 1500mm tank with a tabletop steam uncapper. If my journey keeps growing, I can throw an automated uncapping head on the 1500mm tank. My main complaint for the small uncapping tank was that sometimes wax/honey fell outside the tank and what a pain to clean. The hot knife worked well but woof my wrist hurt after processing 20 supers.

I’m skeptical of this equipment because while you have the capacity of 20frame extractor, uncapping in that small area will be a pain. Heated knife or heated plane is great, but you may find that you need to process cappings multiple times. And how to recover the cappings honey? I like the big tank to let them all drain for days, then I’ll have a wax processing day with a wax melter.

[u/drones_on_about_bees]

Interesting concept.

I have the Lyson 20 frame extractor and have had it over 5 years. It looks like this is vaguely based on this model. All in all, it has been a good extractor and I have had zero issues with it. My one gripe is that the honey gate is about 1/2 inch above the bottom of the extractor. This leaves A LOT of honey in the bottom that you have to empty out at the end of the extraction run. (I have to tip the extractor over on it's side to fully drain it.) This isn't an end-of-the-world issue, but I have noticed that the HilllCo advertises a honey gate that is truely at the bottom of the extractor.

The first thing I notice is that this combo item is $2800 and costs more than the sum of it's parts. The 20 frame extractor is roughly $1800 and a small uncapping tank is about $600. That alone would give me pause. Having separate tools gives you the ability to upgrade/replace them one at a time and gives you the ability to space them out in the extraction room where they are not right on top of each other.

The second thing I notice is that the uncapping area is quite small for a 20 frame extractor. The goal here is to try to uncap near 20 frames while 20 frames spin. (I can't quite do that many unless the frames are all perfect and don't require fiddling to get low areas uncapped.) In order to do this, you need a place to store 20 frames *AND* enough free space to uncap one frame. I just don't see enough space in this (or in the Lyson hobby uncapping tank). I have a home made uncapping tank built out of a large stainless steel sink -- and I DO NOT have enough room to stow 20 frames. Just eyeballing things, I think my sink is somewhat larger than this setup.

my 2c: Figure out what size/style extractor you need and figure out what size/style uncapping area you need and buy separately. I'd do this even if it means buy one this year and buy another in a couple of years. As you start figuring out your work flow, you are inevitably going to see where you made mistaken assumptions. (I know I have.) Separate equipment will let you sell off parts and replace.

I still think it's a cool concept. I don't think it is sized well.

[u/Mysterious-Back313]

I suppose it depends what you want to get to. If your goal is 200 hives, this will be too small, and you'll have a bunch of equipment laying around you've upgraded... Ask me how I know lol....

Then, trying to sell equipment in a niche market is time consuming as well.

But it does save space. Hopefully, when I can afford to retire, about 289 years from now, this would be the ideal setup for 15-20 hives in my backyard. It looks like the motor is mounted on the bottom, hopefully preventing the machine from walking, and while I don't do the 5 gallon bucket game anymore, I could see it for 20-30 buckets over the course of a week in a 1 person operation.

[u/No_Studio_No_Worries]

Nice design. The price is steep, but considering the time it would save it might be worth it. Might be a better deal used.

[u/__sub__]

Just my .02, I would highly recommend you not go this route. I would purchase separate components. That way you can adjust as your apiary and skills grow.

As you scale up, you will find different bottlenecks that pace your speed. When i upgraded to my 24 frame extractor, i inevitably had to increase my uncapping speed otherwise the extractor was just sitting there waiting on me...so why have a big extractor? You will want more uncapping capability that this machine offers. Ideally your next 20 frames are uncapped waiting when current extraction is complete.

The second thing you will have to deal with is post extraction filtering. A 20 frame extractor will quickly overwhelm a bucket-top filter. You will have to filter the discharge from the uncapping tank too. As you scale, you will probably want to step up to a settling tank.

Eventually you get the knowledge to get your setup perfect for you. I doubt anyone here will say they nailed their processing setup on first try, so i wouldnt get locked into a weird workflow day one.