Club extractor vs buying my own — am I paranoid about disease on shared gear?
Ontario, second year, going into my first real harvest — maybe three supers between two hives. My club rents a 4-frame extractor for $10 a weekend, which is obviously the sensible choice versus $500+ for something I'd use twice a year.
But here's my hangup: AFB spores survive basically forever, and that extractor has been through who knows how many apiaries. Honey itself can carry spores, right? People in the club say 'we've always shared it, never had a problem' but that's also what people say right up until there's a problem. Is honey residue on an extractor a real AFB transmission risk to my colonies, or am I being a paranoid second-year? The wet frames go back to my bees for cleanup, which is the part that worries me.
#extractor#afb#club#harvest#hygiene
▲ 8 votes💬 4 replies
4 replies
ImkerinLena · Jul 23, 2026
Your instinct is not paranoia — it is exactly right about the mechanism. Honey can absolutely carry AFB spores, and the risky step is precisely the one you named: giving contaminated wet frames back to bees. The extractor itself, washed with hot water between users, carries little residue. My advice: use the club machine, but rinse it thoroughly yourself before use, and either return YOUR wet frames only to YOUR hives or let the frames drip and store them wet. Never open-feed cappings or washings.
QuebecBees · Jul 23, 2026
Practical note from Quebec: our club solved this by requiring a hot pressure-wash before AND after each rental, logged in a book, and no gear rented to anyone under a current inspection order. Ask if your club has any policy at all — if the answer is a shrug, that tells you something. But with ImkerinLena's precautions the shared machine is a reasonable bet for 3 supers.
AbejaMiguel · Jul 23, 2026
Also consider crush and strain for year two! Three supers is an afternoon's work with a bucket, a paint strainer bag and a potato masher. Zero shared gear, and you get wax to render. I did it for years before owning an extractor. You lose the drawn comb, which is the real cost — drawn comb is worth more than the honey to a growing apiary, so I understand if that settles it.
BethsBees · Jul 24, 2026
Renting it — turns out the club DOES have a wash log and a no-rental rule during inspection orders, I just never asked. I'll rinse it again myself anyway and my wet frames only go back on my own hives, at dusk, inside the boxes. Thanks all, feeling much better about it.