How to extract out heather honey

Heather is a very good autumn honey plant, it gives a productive fоrаging season at a time when other honey plants have already faded. Honey collection contributes to the cultivation of a generation of bees for the winter. From 1 hectare of flowering heather bees collect 60-100 kg of honey, one family can collect 8-25 kg or more up to 65 kg of honey.

However, beekeepers are sometimes overly cautious and are not keen on collecting it. Because there are many problems when extracting heather honey.

With the increased rotation of a conventional honey extractor, the honeycombs break, and the heather honey is still not extracted out.

But beekeepers are smart people and find solutions in any situation.
Some use a special roller, which loosens combs with heather honey. Heather honey is extracted out, but the combs are slightly damaged, if the combs are damaged very much, then the bees can rebuild the cells into drone cells.
Some make a special plank - thin nails are densely planted on a wooden plate. Heather honey combs are placed on a board and a plank with stuffed nails is applied on top. As a result, a small hole is obtained in the bottom of the cell, thanks to which heather honey is quickly extracted out. A small hole in the bottom of the cell of the bee is quickly closed up and the comb is whole again.

Some make reinforced wire cassettes for the honey extractor specifically for extracting heather honey. Such cassettes are put on honey extractors instead of ordinary cassettes - they are used in honey extractors with an electric motor creating a speed of 200 revolutions per minute, at which heather honey is extracted out.
Some beekeepers use honeycombs with drone cells, heather honey from drone cells is extracted out better than from bee cells.

For heather honey collection, you can use combs with reinforced foundation, such combs are good to use both for migrations and for migrations to heather honey collection, the combs withstand transportation and high speeds in the honey extractor, which allows you to extract out heather honey.
Also, beekeepers use such methods - immediately after selecting frames with heather honey, they cut off half of the cells on the honeycomb with a sharp, heated knife. It remains, as it were, half of the cell, such frames are placed in a honey extractor and quickly extracted out. This method is suitable as long as the frames are just removed from the hive and the honey is still warm.
In another case, the frames with heather honey taken out from the hive are cut off with a sharp, heated knife to the foundation, after which the honey drains for 2 days. Subsequently, the frames are placed again in the hives, where the bees pull the cells again, simultaneously filling them with honey.
In order to exclude damage and breakage of good nesting combs, which are very necessary both for growing brood and for collecting honey, the bees themselves are involved in the work of freeing low-copper body frames. The bees do it quickly and don't damage the combs.
You can simply use heather honey to get comb honey. Comb heather honey, eliminates the cost of extracting heather honey and costs more than regular honey.

In Scotland, heather honey is often not extracted out in a honey extractor, but honey is obtained by pressing.