The Keeper

Uncapping shallow frames with an electric uncapping plane.
© Canada Agriculture and Food Museum

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An electric uncapping knife is used to cut through the wax cappings so that the honey can be extracted.

This uncapping box, advertised in a 1920s Ruddy catalogue, was intended to ensure a thorough extraction of honey.

These uncapped frames are ready for the extractor.

This frame needs to be uncapped before it’s placed in the extractor.

This device, known as an uncapping plane, was heated electrically, ca 1920.

Feeding frames into an automatic uncapper, ca 1920.

These dual automatic uncappers were designed so that the wax cappings fell into the tanks below, ca 1920.

An automatic uncapping burr, driven by line belt, ca 1920.

The blade of a steam uncapper was hot enough to melt wax cappings, ca 1920.

Uncapping

The first major step is to remove the wax capping from the comb. In commercial operations, this may be done with an automatic "uncapper" that can remove caps from over 600 frames per hour. The technology used in uncapping varies widely, from the completely automatic to the electric hand-held uncapper, and then to a plain knife used manually. This last option, of course, involves more time and effort.

Regardless of the preferred technology, the wax capping needs to be removed in order to get the honey out of the combs. Removing the thin layer of wax does not damage the walls of the cells, and so the bees can reuse the same cells.

In some cases, beekeepers remove the honey frames before the bees cap the cells. Often the honey has not yet ripened, and so it has a high water content. The beekeeper must then dehumidify the frames before extracting the honey.

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