Design & construction of a honey extraction line.

Abstract

Natural honey is one of the most widely sought products due to its unique properties, which are attributed to the influence of the different groups of substances it contains. Honey is used for nutritional, medicinal and industrial purposes and it is an important commodity in the local and international markets and serves as a source of income to many farmers and processors. In Uganda, honey production (beekeeping) has the potential to develop as a prime agro-horticultural and forest based industry which can be a major foreign exchange earner if. international standards are met. However, the practice of rearing bees in Uganda is not common in many places due lack of efficient modes of harvesting and processing honey. In many local areas, bees are considered dangerous insects which cause harm to animals and people. This mystery has led to redundancy by many people to indulge in beekeeping. The few farmers who harvest honey have poor methods of processing the honey. Some apiarists pound the honey and put it on a basket, it's then left to drop until the comb debris is left empty on the basket. Other apiarists boil the combs containing honey and add water, then filters out honey. All these modes of processing honey destroy yield poor quality honey as the processed honey mixes with wax and also has smell of cooked flavor, hence altering the biochemical and physical characteristics of honey. The methods aforementioned destroy the honey combs which could be returned to the hive for refiling by bees. This constraint thus leads to long gestation period for bees to manufacture honey as they have to rebuild another comb before refilling it with honey. This study intended to construct a line of extracting honey from the combs without destroying it and altering. the characteristics of honey. The line of extraction is made simple, consisting of uncapping knife, extractor machine, bucket with sieves and bucket for collecting strained honey. After construction, the performance and economic analysis of the extraction line were performed in terms of extraction efficiency and extraction loss, resulted into 64% extraction efficiency and 16% losses. Total cost; Ugx. 763,000. Cost of extraction; Ugx. 7,000, net income; Ugx 1,500,00, Breakeven units; 120litres of honey and pay back-period of 0.51 years Owing to the performance and economic analysis of the extraction line, it achieves all its design purposes hence it is recommended for commercialization and adoption by the target groups.