New thing I learned

[Shawn]

So in watching a YouTube video that I didn't think would be that interesting, I learned something great! (Isn't that how it always works.)

It was about wax rendering, and how the guy uses his cleaned wax to "wax" foundation.
Now, I always thought the plastic foundation we buy was waxed, as it smells very lightly of honey. But he explained that waxing it "again" with your cleaned wax really encourages the bees to draw out comb. For a small amount of hives, he recommended a crock pot* with water added to melt the wax, a small trim sized paint roller or foam brush to "paint" wax on. Then let dry and use.

I knew that there is only a small window of time in the spring that bees like to drawn foundation. Swarms are particularly primed to do this, as they know they have to build a new house somewhere. But he indicated if you feed your bees, and provide them waxed foundation, they will continue to draw comb for a longer time at least.

He also talked about when they build comb that is set off the foundation, you know when it kind of "floats" beside the foundation and is only attached in a couple places? That's because they don't like the foundation. Waxing will stop that, too.

So, I'm going to pick up a garage sale crock pot, melt down some of my rendered wax, wax up 10 new frames and experiment with a hive I have that was a very small swarm. They have built out one box nicely, mostly because I gave them as much drawn comb as I had left. (We took last year to throw out lots of old foundation, so we were limited on drawn comb this year)
I'm still feeding them because they were so small. I'm hoping with this idea, they can actually fill out another brood box before winter. We'll see. If they don't, I'm going to overwinter them in a double stack nuc. I haven't done that before, so that will be a new one for me. At least it will be a learning experience.

But, this hive has the biggest queen I have ever seen. I know they swarmed with a virgin, but she's now so big I saw her when I was first looking down into the box!! She lifted her "tail" and I was like, wow, there's the queen. Have you EVER seen that? LOL

*As always with wax, don't plan on ever using that crock pot again for food.

[rosalind]

We buy wax foundation and find the bees really do like it. I think your waxing idea sounds great for plastic.

And that wax pot, you could use to dip your cheese in, if straight wax. I dip in beeswax, then dip in cheese wax so the cheese wax doesn't actually touch the cheese.

[Shawn]

I confess, I was too impatient to wait on a crock pot, so I grabbed an old pan I had thrown out and melted some wax in water very carefully on the stove. Anyway, I waxed up several frames and replaced them in the tiny swarm hive.
I have continually fed them for a month. Most of the time I have kept their feeder full save a few days they ran out. It took them a few days to really start taking the syrup hard, but now they'll take a batch in about 3 days. (8 cups water/4# sugar)

This morning I peeked in to see what's going on. I wish that I'd had my camera. 4 frames of the most beautiful wax you've ever seen. They had syrup stored in about 2/3 of it and then one frame was just filled end to end with capped brood, the most beautiful pattern. I mean it was photo worthy. I may ask my DD to come out with her nice camera and I'll open it again. It was THAT gorgeous.

I've noticed a lot of bees orienting from that hive, so I knew they had to be growing. Which rather goes against the idea of them slowing down after the solstice. So maybe in a situation where they know they need more numbers (and they have plenty of food), they will continue to grow after the solstice until they feel they have a sufficient number. I'm going to continue feeding them and hope in another month they have the rest of the frames drawn out. I'll need to check the bottom box to see what they've done down there, there were a few frames that needed drawing out on the bottom.

So, it really does work. I will make sure and wax anything new I put on the hive or any scraped frames from here on out.

[jerseycowgirl]

That’s really exciting!
Do you use the cappings that you get from extracting? How do you store your cappings?
Can I clean off wonky drawn comb, and coat the old foundation with wax? Or should I just start with new foundation? A lot of my super frames/ foundation is in pretty bad shape.
Thanks for sharing this, anything I can learn to help the bees along, so that they can help us along.

[Shawn]

Yes, I used my cappings. I wash them until they're reasonably not sticky. Washing is mostly for my purposes in handling them, but not truly necessary if you're going to put them directly into the melter. I clean and let them dry thoroughly if I'm going to store them. Toss them in a plastic bag. some of these I had in the attic for a few years (forgot the bag) so they'll "keep" indefinitely when clean/dry.

Yes, scrape off the wonky comb. You can discard it or reuse it. You don't need new foundation unless you've had some disease or if it's really old/black, then I'd replace it.

I clean my wax first by running it through my "fancy" solar wax melter. Which is a cheap Styrofoam cooler, a Blue Bunny oval ice cream container, some water, aluminum foil, paper towels, rubber bands and a piece of glass to cover the top of the cooler. I can link a better description for that if you want.
Once I've cleaned all my wax, I store it that way, too.

Then take the cleaned wax, put some water in your pan or crockpot, heat until wax is melted. Be very careful! You can dip the foundations in (if you have a large enough pot) but I took a foam paint brush and painted the wax on. It dries very fast.
The ones I did this time were already in frames, so dipping wouldn't have worked anyway. But it's not a big deal to paint it on.

Like I said, this was a very exciting thing to learn. Sure explained a lot about why my bees were drawing the way they were and why they weren't drawing at all sometimes.

[Shawn]

Here's where I learned how to make my wax melter.

beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2013/08/make-hay-while-sun-shines.html

[jerseycowgirl]

That was a very interesting video on the solar wax melter. Such an easy way to strain and melt all those cappings. I liked how she uses the waxy paper towels in her smoker. I always struggle to keep my smoker going.
Do you set your cappings back outside and let your bees clean them up?
I’ll be pulling my supers and extracting on Monday, if all goes as scheduled!

[Shawn]

I have set my cappings out, yes.

Let us know how your harvest is!