GOODLAND BEE SUPPLY Hardin Professional 2 Frame Manual Honey Extractor, Metallic

Alcohol powered.... Thought I would share my experience. Having tried the "economy", all plastic/nylon model which died within 3 seasons I bought this one. It arrived within a week of ordering. It came double boxed and was in fairly good shape on arrival. Upon opening I, like others found that all the mounting hardware was loose in the box but with extensive searching was able to locate all of the pieces. The "instructions" dont quality as such but with a bit of common sense, one can overcome this obstacle. One of the 3 legs came undrilled but I have a good shop and was able to drill out the mounting holes ok. Cleaning obviously needs to be done. Partially filled with hot water and dish soap and then turn the handle gently to agitate. Wipe out and the sterilized with boiling water. Now, on to spinning. Balance your frames and it is best to screw this down to the surface you are working on. The extraction process is quick and easy and the unit worked flawlessly. It is easy to turn, spins smoothly (as long as your frames are balanced). I can recommend this product but do heed the downsides in this and other reviews. Know that it may take a little "homestead ingenuity" to get it put together. And one last thing. I'd recommend buying lock washers for all the leg bolts (9) as the vibration tended to loosen them up. For small scale, private use, this seems to be a great product.

fairly standard extractor for medium size apiaries (I have 15 hives and produce about 50G a year near the Bay Area). I liked the design of how the legs mount on stays fixated through the wall of the tank. my previous extractor which was similar use standoffs that were point welded to the exterior side instead and eventually with the vibrations of unbalanced loads, they sheared off. So far it performs as expected. The bad part is that there was a dent right near the bottom port and this seems to have occurred at the factory, since there is a red paint mark on it that belongs to a leg. speaking of paint, the red paint on the legs has many blemishes and is even spotty on 2 legs. I wonder why the factory does not do a more thorough final QC it would have earned 5 stars for the price and functionality.

I was on the fence about this purchase. I really wasn't sure if it was necessary because I only have one hive with 10 frames to extract this year. With that said I am so glad I made this investment. It is very easy to use and is incredibly effective. The basket would better fit deep hive frames but we had zero complications fitting 6 1/2" honey super frames. Easy to use, easy to clean, a great investment and a huuuuge time saver extracting frames with minimal waste. I look forward to having this for many years to come as I continue my journey in beekeeping. As for other customer's complaints about loose nuts and gear oil these are easy things to address. Anyone with minimal mechanical skill shouldn't have a problem tightening things up as they should. I even took mine apart so that I was more familiar with how it all went together and how it worked. The drum and components do come lightly coated in gear oil (I'm assuming from the manufacturing site) but the unit cleans up real easy without any fuss whatsoever. I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for an affordable unit for these purposes.

Packaging was very insufficient for the bulk & sharp edges of the extractor parts. Box had multiple tears & luckily none of the large parts were missing or damaged. The hardware kit didn't fare so well. A significant amount of the bolts, washers, and acorn nuts were missing. A round trip to the hardware store cost an hour & approx $30 to just start fresh with all new stainless hardware - bolts, washers, lock-washers, and screws for the nylon bushings that help secure the clear plexiglass top covers. Assembly is straightforward if you're mechanically inclined... it's very intuitive to understand the attachment of everything. If it would've contained a proper hardware pack, then it'd be a 5 star review.

No assembly instructions included, but only took about ten seconds from first ring to speaking with a person who walked me through assembly. Tested on four frames today and worked well. Handle is hard plastic, wish they would make those soft foam or something more comfortable, but it was wide enough that my hand didn't cramp. Squeaked first few revolutions but squeaking went away before finishing first set of frames. Baskets where large enough to fit large frame, shaped odd so may fit small/medium frames more securly, but did not test. Did not install legs- they look a little short to fit a five gallon bucket under honeygate but seem heavy duty so later may install and measure height. Overall it is a solid extractor would reccomend for extracting one or two hives, any more and your arm will fall off.

As a honey extractor for someone with just a few hives, this is not a bad product. It has some design flaws that make it difficult to use if everything is not just perfect . . . but I am not sure they are fixable on any similar device that can be used for small scale extraction. Pros: * Ease of assembly. * Ease of extraction (when foundations are balanced). When the frames were balanced, I was amazed that just 10 - 15 seconds of hard cranking was usually enough to spin out all but the very crystallized honey. * Ease of offloading honey when not spinning much.. Leg height is decent for putting a small container or pot under. * Ease of clean-up (except for the ball bearing situation listed below). It comes apart easily and washes up well enough. BIGGEST CON: There is a ball bearing in the nut in the center of the collection pot that is necessary for centering and spinning the foundation container. However, I almost lost it on the first cleaning because I turned the pot upside down to rinse it and the ball bearing fell out. POOR DESIGN. I am going to purchase several ball bearings as I assume I will lose this no matter how careful I am. Other Cons: * I am OK with this not working unless there are frames on both sides, but the problem goes beyond that. The frames have to be equally weighted. If a frame is full on one side and I don't have another one side full to match, it will wobble with great force because one frame is twice as heavy as the other. I end up cranking it fast and then holding on to the tank. * The well inside the collection tankonly holds about one medium super worth of honey before it needs to be emptied. If you try to spin off more than that, the frames drag in the honey. * In addition to the above, unless placed on a table, you need a low pot to collect honey in as even with the legs, there is not much room below the pot. When offloading honey, I would have to switch pots back and forth, slowing the process down as I only had one strainer. * the lid does not fasten onto the top. It just sits there. And it isn't tight. So with any wobbling, I am using one hand to turn the crank and the other to hold the lids in place. And removal and replacement of frames is complicated by nowhere to store the lids. Note, the attached picture is the honey I got from just under two full medium supers. The entire process, including set-up, clean-up, straining the honey, and transferring it to the containers took about three hours. I would guess an extra hour per medium super.

The extractor was received by the expected delivery date. Upon the external inspection I noticed a corner of the box deformed as if it had been dropped. Upon the interior inspection I found one of the plexi-glass covers to be severely chipped. I requested a return through Amazon and put the chipped lid back in the box and didn't remove any of the remaining contents to spare the effort of repacking it for the return shipment. Specialty Diamond contacted me the next day by email, which included their customer service phone number. I called their customer service and spoke to Mario. He advised me he could have a new cover to me quicker than a complete extractor and would ship a new one out immediately. The new cover arrived two days later. After removing the extractor from the box for a complete inspection, after installing the crank handle, cranking it produced a thumping noise and a squeal. As the basket and rod spun, I could see the rod had a slight bend in it. Upon removing the basket and rod from the tub, I found the lower end of the rod to have a slight bevel to the cut on the lower end of it. I called Mario and he said he would send a new rod and basket to me. That part arrived in two days also. After replacing the rod and basket and reattaching the gears and crank handle, everything worked perfect during the dry test. Wanting to give a complete review on it, I waited until I harvested honey in it. My final grade of it as far as functioning is now a 5-star, however, the inconvenience and time spent with phone calls and repairs, I can only give it a 4-star. My rating for the customer service I received is 5-star. I spoke to the same person every time I called, (Mario) preventing me from having to explain what was going on each time I called. On both of my calls Mario advised me of my options, with an exchange or refund being two of them. However, considering the time to do it and my mechanical ability, I elected to go with part replacement and a 15% refund for my time and inconvenience. All in all, it's worth the money I paid for it, and the honey that it spun out of the frames from hives is the best tasting honey I have ever eaten...lol

Excellent product for the price. The quality surpassed our expectations. Well made of quality materials. Was not difficult to clean and had no sharp edges. If we could change anything about this extractor, we would raise the basket a few more inches off the bottom so that it would hold all the honey from a medium 10 frame honey super without having to stop and drain some out before completing the extraction.