Staying rolling at harvest, right-sizing equipment, and decades of development — a LIVE! Q&A with Jamie Pegg

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The future of headers is unlikely to continually stretch wider and wider, so what, then, does the header of 10 years from now offer?

That’s just one of the topics of conversation in this LIVE! segment with Jamie Pegg, general manager for Honey Bee Manufacturing. Listen/watch below for a discussion on why the company went away from hydraulic drive, how the airflex works, and why bigger isn’t always better for headers.

Don’t miss the RealAg LIVE! segment most Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday afternoons at 1 pm Mountain/3 pm Eastern on your favourite social media platform — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Twitch! 

  • It’s kind of amazing to see some in the south of Alberta wrapping up harvest, if you can believe it
  • But there sure are some areas that will have a mess of a crop to pick up (and Pegg hopes they have a Honey Bee header :))
  • Putting products to the test — we don’t love having tough conditions, but it’s sure nice to see products, like the Honey Bee air flex header, work like they should
  • Blizzards and snow storms and matted swaths. What did we learn from last year?
  • The right header can definitely save hours of work at harvest, especially if you’re well-equipped
  • Honey Bee is about developing solutions by farmers, for farmers. The Honey brothers farm too!
  • Sometimes it’s nearly 10 years of product development, design, and testing for a new product to come to market
  • Companies that develop for home, then expand into other nearby markets, and then go international is a real challenge, because you have to test in all those conditions
  • The Honey brothers’ business now sells to 27 different countries. Started with a swather and improved on it, and the neighbour wanted one and pretty soon, Montana neighbours wanted one…and soon, problem solving is popular
  • Argus 2000 works with the Ontario and Quebec dealership networks, as a short line offering
  • The ’20 vs ’21 model for the air flex header: cam reel differences. Header cuts low to the ground, that reel needs to be out in front of the crop, and the low-cut knives really shine. Get every bean, every kernel possible!
  • Variable spacing on finger reels, too. Including doubling up.
  • Fuel efficiency is important too (even though fuel is less expensive right now). It’s a lighter head than you might expect. Sometimes as much as 2,000 pounds on a 40-foot head
  • Keeping design simple, and helping farmers understand how to use the header, means that farmers aren’t experiencing down time.
  • Moving back to mechanical drive, away from hydraulics, was a conscious choice to make it serviceable on farm (and it’s lighter, too!)
  • If you haven’t already, check out this video featuring six IDEAL combines with 50-foot Honey Bee headers!
  • The header shouldn’t be the limiting factor on the combine
  • Where are we headed (yes, we did that) with innovation with the header? It won’t always be bigger, bigger, bigger for sure.

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