I saw an interesting photo yesterday of Duff Maxwell, a Taranaki beekeeper in the 1930s, with his 'packing machine'.
Before I saw the photo, I sort of expected the packing machine to maybe be one of Allan Bates' machines (as he was another Taranaki beekeeper of that era). That's the machine that is in the attached image.
In fact, it was a tank, with an extension out from the tap so that about 6 or 8 honey gates could be fitted, maybe 250mm between them. And sitting below each honey gate was a small set of Avery scales.
Maxwell's instructions for the plant say he judged it more on visual than the actual weight, but I guess a system like this would allow him to work as fast as he liked, not having to wait for a larger container to fill, etc.
But I'll bet there were some messy times there occasionally...
Before I saw the photo, I sort of expected the packing machine to maybe be one of Allan Bates' machines (as he was another Taranaki beekeeper of that era). That's the machine that is in the attached image.
In fact, it was a tank, with an extension out from the tap so that about 6 or 8 honey gates could be fitted, maybe 250mm between them. And sitting below each honey gate was a small set of Avery scales.
Maxwell's instructions for the plant say he judged it more on visual than the actual weight, but I guess a system like this would allow him to work as fast as he liked, not having to wait for a larger container to fill, etc.
But I'll bet there were some messy times there occasionally...
