Preparing for honey production facility

A honey production facility would be needed on La Gonave to process the honey that will be produced on the island.  While the processing of the honey is a year away, steps are being taken now to ensure that we have the needed resources and financing for the facility.

While we will start with a small amount of hives initially, we hope to expand rather quickly beginning 2017.  We also hope to have high quality honey that we can sell in Haiti, but also make products from mead to food products.  We plan to have the production facility to grow along with the hives.  Our initial system will be large enough to have over 20 hives at a time. 

This initial system will have an electric hot knife as an uncapper.  The extractor is large enough to do 9 frames at a time, which will cut down on processing time.  The straining system will allow for different grades of honey from chunky to sparkling honey.  It then allows that honey, free of wax, to then be drained to the bottling bucket, which then allows for the honey to potentially be strained again if needed.  From there you can bottle the honey in small containers that can be sold to the public.

With the above system, it is the bare bones system and will be what is needed initially.  Later an all electric system can be added to the extractor which will help reduce the labor demands that the hand crank system needs.

Moving up the system we can add larger extractors that can do a complete hive of frames at one time (27 frames), and even get electric uncapper which will quickly uncap the wax from the frames, meaning that the above electric knife wouldn't be needed.

Below could be a future purchase which is an all electric 27 frame extractor.

Building an advanced system such as this would require the processing facility to have dedicated power sources (solar) which can run the system.

A future system would need honey storage tanks as well which would make up areas where honey would be kept when we have an overflow of stock, or waiting to sell honey.

Initial Production Facility

So what will be put on La Gonave in the next couple of years?  We will have the ability to store about 1,000 gallons of honey at a time.  While we won't have that much honey at a time, we will have the ability to store up to that amount.  The initial operation would allow minimal workers to run the harvesting and extraction side of the operation.  Workers would be the actual beekeepers themselves who are members of the cooperative.  Extractions, like all uses of equipment, is scheduled based for the cooperative beekeepers.

A site hasn't been chosen yet for the operation, and will be something that we will work with the city of Anse-a-Galets on.  A facility of 800 sq. ft. would be large enough for initial and even future operations.  This facility in the photo shows how a small facility, possibly a shipping container, can be enough space for a honey production facility.

www.whangareibeeclub.co.nz

www.whangareibeeclub.co.nz

Stay tuned!  Go Gonave!