Sugar shack/Honey house/Kitchen

[David in MI]

Has anyone seen one? I'm coming up blank in my searches.

I'm in the very early stages of putting some plans together for a combination honey house/sugar shack with a commercial kitchen as well. I may add some specifications for equipment we'll be using but at this point I'm just looking for any and all designs. We have a 40x80 pole barn with 12' sidewalls and I'm guessing we'll need around half for this project.

Thanks in advance.

[Sugarmaker]

Well yes I have seen one. I built it and work in it. Is it perfect? No It could use some improvements. We make about 150 gallons of maple syrup. Between my Daughter Kelly and I we currently have four hives. We just took off 130 lb of honey.
Our kitchen is not a class A kitchen. It would probably need some work to get to that level. Our room is 12 x 26 at the back of our evaporator room.
Some of our equipment:\
Chest freezer for bulk syrup storage
Metal cupbord for supply storage
small refrigerator
electric range
microwave
40 gallon hot water tank
Hobart mixer
two basin sink
racks for maple product
folding work tables
Cotton candy machine
candy machine
syrup canner
honey extractor (4 frame tangential hand crank) and base

Some equipment gets moved around as needed. Hope this helps?
Sounds like you have plenty of room to make this happen.

Regards,
Chris

[Sugarmaker]

Our milti-use kitchen is at the back of the sugarhouse where the garage door is. Raised loft above is sap feed tanks and storage area.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/Sugarmaker/Maple%20related%20pictures/snowsidesugar.jpg

Regards,
Chris

[maple flats]

I saw one a few years back. I went to look at and buy some items listed for sale and the retiring maple producer had a nice combination kitchen. I'm sure I'm not remembering everything, but in the kitchen he had a propane fired finisher, a big SS counter with a SS sink in it, and a large steam kettle. He said he used that kettle to warm (but not get hot) something like 80 gal of honey at a time. I don't recall how it dispensed the honey but my guess is that it had an outlet with a valve or valves. He was not getting out of the honey end, just the maple. In his sugarhouse (the main part, which the kitchen was off) he had a large RO, a big oil fired evaporator, and several large filter pans/with filter racks, stands and covers. I think they were about 3' square.
I ended up buying a 545 gal SS bulk tank (retired milk tank), a bunch of food grade 55 gal barrels with a cut out on one side for roadside collection of sap, with cover for the cut outs, a bunch of half barrels with plywood covers for sap on smaller need groups of trees and a bunch of smaller items. Everything was priced very reasonably, for example the 545 gal SS tank with both lids and the valve was $300.

[mudr]

Well yes I have seen one. I built it and work in it. Is it perfect? No It could use some improvements. We make about 150 gallons of maple syrup. Between my Daughter Kelly and I we currently have four hives. We just took off 130 lb of honey.
Our kitchen is not a class A kitchen. It would probably need some work to get to that level. Our room is 12 x 26 at the back of our evaporator room.
Some of our equipment:\
Chest freezer for bulk syrup storage
Metal cupbord for supply storage
small refrigerator
electric range
microwave
40 gallon hot water tank
Hobart mixer
two basin sink
racks for maple product
folding work tables
Cotton candy machine
candy machine
syrup canner
honey extractor (4 frame tangential hand crank) and base

Some equipment gets moved around as needed. Hope this helps?
Sounds like you have plenty of room to make this happen.

Regards,
ChrisSugarmaker- how "tight" is your shack? First year beek here, taking 3 hives in to winter. Hope to start harvesting next year using my new shack. Pretty sure the bees can find their way in if they wanted to. Hoping to not start off a robbing feast inside the shack while harvesting in the summer. Any experience?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[SeanD]

Sugarmaker- how "tight" is your shack? First year beek here, taking 3 hives in to winter. Hope to start harvesting next year using my new shack. Pretty sure the bees can find their way in if they wanted to. Hoping to not start off a robbing feast inside the shack while harvesting in the summer. Any experience?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

I use my sugar house to extract honey. You don't need a lot of room. In a 10'x12' space in front of my evaporator, I have a table to uncap at, the extractor ratchet strapped to my RO closet wall, and stacks of about 8-12 supers in a typical harvest.

There are plenty of cracks for the bees to get in, but they don't. I've had spills I want the bees to clean up, so I leave the door open. They don't touch it. My sugarhouse is about 100-125 ft. from the hives - although my big doors face the opposite direction. When I'm all done, I put the extractor, tools, cappings, and the sieves just outside the door and they'll come gobble it up within a day.

Sean

[Sugarmaker]

I have had bees come in sometimes and not bother other times. If I have honey in the sugarhouse I close the doors to keep them out just in case. Your bound to get a few bees in there with you at times. Comes with the territory!
Regards,
Chris

[David in MI]

Sorry, just now coming back to this thread but thanks for the replies. I've been working on getting estimates for insulation, a new well and septic. Hoping to handle the electrical myself with guidance from a friend who's an electrician (or is it him doing the work and me being the gopher lol?). Anyway, thanks again for the input. I've checked around since I posted this and haven't come across anything along the lines of what we're planning. I did visit a honey house where they are using smaller milk tanks for bulk honey storage/bottling that was pretty neat, though. Each of the bulk tanks had its own point-of-use water heater which is used to warm the honey for bottling. Each water heater is connected to the cooling lines in the tank with a recirculation pump. Pretty neat idea and I'd guess fairly low running cost.

I think my original estimate as to the size requirement is a bit small and we're looking at going a little bigger. By the time we put all of the maple equipment in there with a room for the RO, a honey extractor with a 4'x15' footprint along with all the other assorted equipment and room for storage of glass on pallet racking etc and I just think we're going to need more room.