Honey Extraction Services
The extraction of honey is often a very messy, very sticky business and can cause strife in the home, as the kitchen can become bedecked with honey in seconds. The equipment required can be very expensive, takes up a lot of space and can sit unused for 360 days a year!
Let me take all those stresses and worries away for you.
How it works:
By appointment, you deliver your lovely honey-laden 'supers' to me, we weigh it and estimate the yield. This is truly only an estimate but gives you something work with if you're buying jars etc. I shall then extract the honey for you, letting it settle and after light filtering, place it in a 'food grade' plastic tub, either supplied by you or I can supply them. I then call/text you later to let you know your honey is ready for collection, together with your 'wet supers'. If you wish to have your wax cappings back, I can arrange this too in an extra bucket (yours or mine).
NB If your honey is heavily crystallized in the comb, please let me know before delivery. It will require considerably more time and effort to extract, using a honey/wax melting tray, so an extra charge will apply. Please discuss it with me before delivery.
Charges:-
Extraction of honey, per Super (leaving cappings) - £12
Extraction of honey, per Super (taking cappings with you) - £14
Food-grade 15Kg plastic tub and lid (each) - £5
Bottling Service
Having extracted your honey, or had me extract it for you, why not let me do the bottling for you too? Taking your honey, I shall bottle it in standard 1lb (454g) jars, capped with a sealed tin lid. These fully recycle-able jars are first washed and sterilised by heat and then the honey is poured in. Any spare honey, i.e. less than a pound, goes in the final jar - an early taster treat just for you and the family!
If you wish me to bottle your honey in your own design or choice of jars, please let me know in advance, and bring the jars with you or discuss with me.
Charges:-
Honey bottled in glass 1lb jar, with lid, per jar - £0.75
Bottling of honey in your own jars, per jar - £0.25
Labelling Service
If you wish, I can apply the labels for sale too. If you provide me with your labels, I shall apply them right after the bottling process, so that you get a complete 'ready to sell' product. If you're unsure of the requirements for labelling produce and would like advice, feel free to contact me and we can discuss your requirements.
Charges:-
Labelling service per jar (max 2 labels per jar) - £0.10
PRICING EXAMPLE:
Let's take an example...
Your bring me 4 supers, each with about 20lbs of honey in them. I will first weigh them on my scales, and estimate the weight of honey contained, just to give you an idea of what to expect, and extract the honey, soft filtering during the extraction process.
Cost total £48
It is 80lbs as surmised. You forgot / don't have any honey buckets, so I place the honey in 4 of my sterilised food grade honey buckets for you, at £5 each.
Cost total now £48 + £20 = £68
This year, you can't face the faff of bottling so ask me to do it for you. There are 80lbs so I clean and sterilise 80 jars and lids for you and bottle your honey up at 75 pence a jar, using my standard 1lb glass jars and gold lids.
Bottling charge for 80 jars - £60
The total now, for 80lbs of extracted honey, settled, filtered and bottled is £128.
And I can put your labels on for 10p per jar, or in this example, a total of £8!
The average retail price for local honey currently seems to be around £6, so for the small task of bring me your supers, you have 80 jars of 'ready to sell' honey, for the sum of £136 (£1.70/jar), leaving you £344 profit for almost no effort.
Please note, I have been deliberately pessimistic on some of the numbers. Supers can often hold more than 20lbs, sometimes up to 30lbs. And you may sell your honey at more than £6 a jar. I have seen it being priced at nearly twice that in some more up-market places, and it is selling!