Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => HeatMaster => Topic started by: mlappin on June 10, 2017, 08:58:50 PM
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Did our towns two day festival. Talked to a high school friend today, settled on a G200 eventually. Standard house install, but the pole barn is going to be interesting, going to be a 36x72 divided into three sections, one is cold storage, a much smaller section will be a hot room for extracting honey. Needs to be kept between 112-115 degrees, may need to go as high as 140 once in awhile if the honey is froze or crystalized. Radiant in the floor should handle the 112-115 but thinking air handlers obviously to get it to 140, definitely will want that one first in the loop. He’s talking a minimum of 12” of insulation in the walls and 24” in the ceiling over and above what the building will already have in the shell.
He’s big into honey and has had paid trips to the east coast and other places to divulge his secrets on his very high over winter survival rates. Really pretty simple, bees are meant to eat honey, sugar water isn’t honey, so don’t take so much honey that they need sugar water in the spring to have enough energy to start gathering pollen to make more honey. Last I heard his survival rates are around 95% which is unheard of with hive mites and colony collapse disorder being a common problem across the country.
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My grandfather does this as well but he does not take the last 2 months before winter of their stock. He boils down brown sugar and pure cane sugars into a lump (basically synthetic honey to bees)that he puts into the hive hut with the limited stock they have on hand. He has about 200 colonies or bee huts on his land with 200 acres of clovers (sweetest honey) and some dandelion honey (dark golden). He covers each and every one with a thermal absorbing blanket when the snow flies. As far as I know he rarely looses any bees over winter this way.
Also wanted to point out that nectar is what bees make honey with pollen is what they carry on their legs and fuzzy belly to help a sexual plants reproduce! Bees are fascinating creatures, if you ever have a chance to watch them ball in the winter to keep warm it is truest one of the coolest things you will see. Picture 10,000 bees in a basketball size shape with the queen in the middle buzzing their wings and walking in a circle to create friction to keep the hive warm enough for their honey to keep from freezing.
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My brother-in-law is into bees, we went over the other day and suited up. Took a hive apart, saw the queen, drones, larva, etc. Fascinating. I've never had thousands of bees zinging by my head and just stand there and watch everything.
He'd love to hear all the tricks of the trade your friend knows, and there are a lot of them!
Definitely going to need blowers to get 140 air temps. Those odd-ball installs are the fun ones!
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120 on in floor sounds like a hurt on the feet.
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Sections to be extracted will be stacked on pallets then moved into the hot room with a hand pallet mover, but yah my feet would be a sweaty mess in 2 seconds with a floor that warm.