Content
- 1 Beekeeping knife: application in beekeeping
- 2 What varieties are there?
- 3 Electric knife for unsealing honeycombs
- 4 How to make an electric bee knife with your own hands
- 5 Steam knife for unsealing honeycombs
- 6 How to make a steam knife for printing honeycombs with your own hands
- 7 Which knife is better: steam or electric?
- 8 Homemade bee knife made from a scythe
- 9 Safety precautions and features of working with the tool
- 10 Conclusion
The knife for printing honeycombs has a special shape, and before use it must be heated in hot water. The tool is convenient for use in a small apiary. If you need to print a large number of honeycombs, frequent heating in water takes a lot of time. It is more convenient to use an electric beekeeper knife or a tool that is constantly heated by steam.
Beekeeping knife: application in beekeeping
According to its intended purpose, a knife for opening honeycombs is used to cut wax growths from filled frames. The bee tool is made of metal. The blade has a special double-sided sharpening and a pointed tip for convenient opening of honeycombs. The shape of the handle is slightly curved. The blade length varies from 150 to 230 mm, width - from 35 to 45 mm. A perfectly flat plane is important. If the working blade is slightly curved, the crumbling of the beam will increase.
During operation, the bee knife is constantly heated in hot water. The heated blade does not stick with wax, which simplifies the printing of honeycombs.The inconvenience of conventional apiary knives is associated with rapid cooling. You need to have a lot of tools at hand. While the beekeeper is working with one knife, the others are warming up. The cooled bee tool is replaced with a heated one.
To increase productivity, use an electric or steam honeycomb knife. Constant heating eliminates the need to keep a large number of tools on hand.
What varieties are there?
There are three types of beekeeping devices:
- A traditional unheated instrument is heated in a container of hot water before use.
- Steam heated bee tool. Such a steam knife is often made for printing honeycombs from aluminum, since the heat-intensive metal tends to warm up quickly.
- Electrically heated knife. In a homemade version, the apiary tool is often made from an old scythe. There are models with a built-in 220-volt heater and a step-down transformer. A 12 V electric bee knife made of stainless steel for printing honeycombs is considered safe, since a safe low voltage passes through the blade.
Each model has its pros and cons. The beekeeper individually selects a knife according to the amount of work.
Electric knife for unsealing honeycombs
The most popular and easy-to-use honeycomb knife is an electric one, which heats up when connected to a power source. A power tool is more convenient than a steam model, since the heating temperature is easy to regulate.
A 220 V electric bee knife is considered more dangerous, since there is a risk of breakdown of insulators and electric shock. Mostly there are tools that operate on 12 volts through a step-down transformer. Such models cannot be plugged into a 220 volt outlet.
The power of the apiary electric knife is adjustable from 20 to 50 W, due to which the heating temperature changes - from 50 OFrom up to 120 OC. The approximate weight of the apiary tool is from 200 to 300 g. Full heating occurs in about 1 minute.
Due to the fact that the electric bee knife is automatically heated, the process of unpacking the honeycombs is accelerated. The work happens continuously. During cutting, the blade cools when in contact with wax. Heating to a given temperature is carried out during the break while the beekeeper prepares a new frame.
The quality of the cut will always be good if you keep the blade clean. After work, it is washed with hot water. Be sure to clean off any carbon deposits that have formed. The blade should always shine.
Store the bee knife in a dry place. No tool case needed.
How to make an electric bee knife with your own hands
For a homemade apiary tool you will need steel. An old braid or stainless steel sheet will do. First, the blade blank is cut out with a grinder. The length is 210 mm for the working part, plus another 25 mm for bending. The width of the workpiece is cut to 45 mm. The strip is clamped with clamps, and a small cut is made in the center with a grinder. The workpiece is clamped into a clamp. Use a blowtorch to heat the area of the handle.When the metal heats up to a scarlet color, bend the edge of the strip with pliers.
The handle is made of fiber. First, 2 identical blanks are cut out. A groove is selected in one half, where a copper strip is laid, cutting off a piece of the car starter winding. The element will serve as a conductor from the knife blade to the wire.
The copper strip is additionally fixed to the blade with screws for reliable contact. The wire for connecting to the transformer is a flexible stranded one. The cross section is about 5 mm2so that it does not heat up under load. The handle halves are connected with rivets or screws.
The power source is a 12 volt transformer. You can use a car battery, but it will drain quickly. The heating temperature is controlled by a rheostat. You can change the power by adding or reducing turns of the secondary winding of the transformer. Reliable insulation is wound between the primary and secondary windings. The transformer housing together with the secondary winding is connected to ground.
Steam knife for unsealing honeycombs
The design of the steam knife for printing honeycombs resembles its electric counterpart, only instead of the current-carrying busbars there is a tube attached. It is connected with a rubber hose to the steam generator. The steam passing through the tube heats the blade and exits in the form of condensate through another hose placed on the other end of the tube.
The advantage of an apiary steam knife is its quick warm-up. Water does not get into the honey, as is the case with a classic instrument heated with boiling water. The downside is that it is tied to a heat source for heating the steam generator, for example, a stove.
In the video of an apiary homemade steam knife:
How to make a steam knife for printing honeycombs with your own hands
The blade is made similarly to its electric counterpart. It is better to make the handle wooden. Wood transmits heat poorly. The handle will not heat up from the steam passing through the tube.
The heater for the blade is made of a thin copper tube. It is soldered to the plate using phosphoric acid. The tube should be located on both edges of the blade. The steam generator is made from an aluminum can or kettle with a capacity of 5 liters. A pipe is attached for the hose. The connection is clamped with a clamp to prevent the hose from being torn off by the steam. The second section of the hose is placed at one end onto the outlet of the copper tube heating the blade. The other end of the hose is lowered into a bucket or sink to drain the condensate.
Which knife is better: steam or electric?
Steam and electric knives are tied to an energy source. In the first case, it is an electrical network with a step-down power supply or a battery. In the second case, the source of energy is a steam generator with a stove or fire. Such attachment is a huge disadvantage of both apiary tools.
Which one is better is chosen by the beekeeper based on ease of work. In terms of ease of use, a factory-made or home-made electric knife for printing honeycombs outperforms its counterpart. The bee tool just needs to be connected like a soldering iron to an energy source and you can work around the clock. You must take care of the steam generator so that the water does not boil away, otherwise the empty container will burn out in the fire.
Homemade bee knife made from a scythe
An old scythe makes a good apiary knife. The heating element is a soldering iron. To make a blade, a piece 150 mm long and 50 mm wide is cut out of the braid. 2 holes are drilled on one side.The tip of a powerful soldering iron is secured with rivets and steel clamps. On the working side, the rivet heads are ground off as much as possible to reduce their protrusion. The blade is sharpened on both sides. The sting is made slightly beveled upward to make it easier to cut the honeycomb.
The heating of a homemade bee knife can only be adjusted by adjusting the power of the soldering iron. To prevent the blade from overheating, immerse it in cold water during breaks between work.
Safety precautions and features of working with the tool
The opening of the honeycombs is carried out in a closed room that prevents the access of bees. An apiary tool of any type is first inspected for serviceability and warmed up. The cut is carried out quickly with sawing movements. The blade stuck with wax is cleaned. If the wax begins to burn on the blade, reduce the heating temperature. At the end of the work, the knife is cleaned and put away for storage.
Conclusion
The knife for printing honeycombs cannot be made of ferrous metals. The resulting rust will spoil the taste of honey. If there are no suitable materials, it is better to purchase an apiary tool in a store.
