Buckets of honeycomb infested by wax moth

[omnimirage]

Turns out that I have two different types of bucket lids for food grade buckets (with and without honeygates), and I've damaged some of them by trying to force lids onto buckets that don't fit. Other lids that, once sealed so tightly that I had to put my knee onto in order to lift, now can be lift with a pinky finger and many others, whilst sealed tightly, aren't as strong as they used to be.

I then buggered up and didn't process some honeycomb that was in a garbage bag, and wax moth ate through the bag and all the comb and now my whole honeyshed is infested with the moths. Then they got into a number of my buckets with the poor lids. I've been using the crush and strain method without a press and haven't had a way of processing the wax afterwards, so I have a build up of wet wax(poorly strained) buckets that moths have gotten into, and unprocessed buckets of honey honeycomb (I just directly scooped it into the bucket with a hivetool), one of which has a strong infestation of many larvae, webs and other gross things inside it, there's about 20 litres of honey all up in the bucket.

So I'm trying to get on top of this situation. I'm trying to identify which buckets are sealed properly. It seems that the seal is largely, if not entirely due to the lids. Some lids clearly seal very well, some clearly don't seal at all, and a number of them are somewhere in between and it's a little difficult to tell. I have some buckets that had honey in them, but I poured it all out so there's just some a sticky layer on the surface left, I'd like to leave these outside with some of the lids I'm unsure about, to test whether ants (and other critters) can gain entrance to it, but with the amount of wax/honey that I have, and with the amount of defective lids that I have it'll be a challenge, if not an impossible one to fit everything that I already have. I might have to go buy myself some more buckets soon. I've been buying second hand 27 litre mustard buckets, it takes a good day or two to clean them and remove the smell (I mostly sit them in water with bicarbsoda, might give them bit of a scrub and spray down with a high pressure hose), I get them cheap but I'm now wondering about the merits of such since they seem to lose their seal after being opened too many times (or it may be that the ones that don't seal anymore, are ones that I tried to force onto a bucket that didn't fit).

I want to bug bomb the honeyshed, there's dozens of moths flying around in there and I really don't want them to be in there. I'm then concerned about the moths that are in my buckets. I won't be able to do any stuff in the shed soon for a few weeks due to life reasons, yet I really don't want the wax moth to spread and thrive in my buckets. The bug bomb will only kill the moth in the shed, not the ones in the bucket.

I figure that I can burn and squish most of the bugs in the buckets. I'm wondering whether if I use a tightly sealed lid on the buckets, would the bugs eventually die in there due to a lack of oxygen? I just find it odd how my buckets that have gunk comb in them (mostly old used brood comb, but any comb that's rubbish but I decide to save to beeswax rather than burn) never seemed to have gotten a wax moth infestation in them and I'm not sure if that's due to chance or whether they need honey to thrive and infest.

[Bakersdozen]

That sounds horrible.  Garbage bags are notorious wax moth incubators.
Do you have any way to freeze a bucket of wax, at least one at a time?
I wouldn't want to expose my wax to a bug bomb and then use it for cosmetics or soap.  Maybe candles?  Wax readily absorbs pesticides. 
Any chickens you can rent and turn them loose in your shed?

[omnimirage]

I can't freeze them as I don't have a freezer larger enough to fit a bucket.

Plan would be to move out all the buckets, the bug bomb is to take out all the moths that are flying around in there.

Wish I had access to chickens!

I just ended up burning the top layer of infected comb. Took awhile due to the honey presence.

[riverbee]

wow, what a mess to deal with! 

omni, do you have a local grocery store with a bakery? or a bakery shop near you?  if so you might ask them for buckets. the bakers order fondant, icing and all sorts of other stuff for baked goods, in 3 - 5 gallon pails. the lids fit nice and tight, and are food grade. i have used these in the past when i ran out of regular 5 gallon honey pails.

[omnimirage]

There's many bakeries around me! I'll have to ask them sometime. I ended up buying 6 used mustard buckets from a seafood fast food chain for a pretty cheap price and going through the process of cleaning them. They fit tightly, messing around with them last night suggests that I actually have three types of lids and buckets it seems, which is seemingly why a number of them don't fit. I'm gonna spend more time figuring it out today and then marking the buckets/lids with spray paint so that I don't get them mixed up again.

[riverbee]

omni, get the bakery buckets, no residue or smell! wash them out good to go! here they give them away, no charge.  they throw them out unless you ask them to keep them for you.

just give the bakeries a call!

[omnimirage]

I'll do that, thanks!

[omnimirage]

I couldn't quite figure it out, but there appears to be maybe 3 types of buckets/lids out there, if not more. I moved all the buckets outside, adjusted the lids so that they were all sealed up well to best effect, wrote labels on each bucket about its contents, checked with wax moth about 8 buckets have been infected many buckets with honey in them, I can't feasibly crush and strain that many in the time frame that I have, so I'm seeking to buy a second hand freezer as soon as I can, so that I can just freeze the buckets and kill the wax moth inside that way. I couldn't find any long chest freezers, there's a few upright freezers, I figure I can just rest them on their side, I'm waiting back on the dimensions of these second hand freezers the people who posted these ads didn't mention such I need to know whether they actually have enough depth to fit a 27 litre bucket.

I moved out all the beekeeping gear and set the bug bomb off. It appears to be quite a low potent one, but it should do the job. I just need to be careful about not reinfecting the area with them via the moths out of the buckets, I made sure all the buckets that had moths had extra tight lids, and I hope I can find a suitable cheap freezer soon to buy.

[omnimirage]

It was difficult to find a freezer that could fit buckets. The best I found just fits a single bucket. How long would it take to properly freeze to kill the moth off? One source said 10 days, and if that's true it'll take the rest of the year to freeze all my stuff :/

[Bakersdozen]

If the freezer is working at a proper temperature, I would give it 2 days. It can take up to 2 days for a large container to freeze all the way. 

[omnimirage]

I've looked into it a bit and it seems that two days is more enough to freeze comb, whereas for a 27 litre/60 pound bucket, it'll take more than that. I'm not really sure how much more, I might try to stick a thermometer down there, but that'll be difficult because I don't have suitable thermometers and there's wax in the way. One has crystallised as well.

I managed to fit two buckets in there. I discovered one bucket is fermenting, and another may or may not be at the very early stages of fermenting, I'm gonna taste test it again tomorrow. Another has too much wax that I can't taste the honey, but it, like the rest of them, have such very low signs of moth that I think they're likely okay.

I've got one full day and one morning left to deal with this situation. I've decided that I'm going to try and render the beeswax that shows sign of moth, melt it all down. I've got a little under 5 27 litre/60 pound buckets worth of beeswax to process. I don't have suitable equipment to do this and I'm not sure how to go about it. I was thinking of putting the wax in cheesecloth, maybe even stockings and boil it, but I realise that, for this quantity, such doesn't seem to be feasible. I think I need to double boiler it and then pour it into some container/bowl through some cheesecloth, but then I'm not sure if I have the right set of pots to do it. I do have a metal bowl of somewhat decent size that's already been ruined by beeswax, it has a rubberbase on it, I'd imagine that'd be okay to boil. Otherwise I'd need to ruin a good pot.

[Barbarian]

One of the UK suppliers has a kit called an Easi-Steam.
It consists of a steam generator plus other bits.
The idea is that the frames of old comb are put in a brood box. The whole set up is sealed and the generator switched on.
The inside temp rises to 105C. After 20mins water and wax gather at the bottom. The old comb and debris gathers on a mesh above the floor.
The frames and propolis remain and can be cleaned for re-use.

Several keeps have made DIY versions at low cost.
I have never used one BUT I might have a play during the rest of our winter.

[omnimirage]

Sounds like a very useful tool to me! I saw a youtube video of someone using one, pretty impressive device it was!

[riverbee]

omni,
fermented honey........do you know anyone that likes to make mead or home brew? as long as there is no wax moth wriggling around in it......
you could sell the fermented honey to the mead makers and brew makers.  just a thought. seal it up tight, until you can find a buyer.

rendering beeswax.........i use a solar melter and other methods. the simplest method for you would be to use a stock pot. (stainless steel is the best). a size that would work for you. aluminum works, but i use stainless. you can find these used or pretty inexpensive.

stove top or hot plate. throw the comb/beeswax in the stockpot, pour water over the wax/comb to fill the stockpot about 1/4 full. turn your stove on medium heat. wait for the heat to melt your wax. don't let it boil. if you see it boiling, turn it off.  heat will discolor wax if boiled or boiled at a high temp (not above 165 dF). i may let it bubble but crank the heat off when it does.

once the wax is melted. remove the stockpot from the heat and allow the wax to harden. once hardened, flop the beeswax out of the pot, empty the water outside, not down the kitchen sink. use a hive tool to scrape the debris off of the bottom of the wax cake, then take a stainless steel scrubby to rub off any debris missed that the hive tool couldn't get to.

when the wax is heated, honey/debris falls in to the water, and some of this will harden at the bottom of the wax cake. you may have to repeat this method to achieve your desired result and other methods to filter cleaner at a later date.

if you can, try to wash the beeswax/comb first: place in a 5 gallon paint filter in a five gallon bucket and wash it clean as you can with a garden hose, then put it in on the stove top, above method.  i would not try to double boil beeswax/comb and try to filter it. you won't get the honey out or all of the  debris. cheesecloth really doesn't work that well, but you can use old ratty t-shirts or similar material for later filtering.

any utensil or pot used in the process of refining/cleaning beeswax will be dedicated for that purpose............

i have a number of threads on the forum of how i process beeswax, can post the links to these threads if you would like, most are in 'products of the hive'.

[omnimirage]

I'm interested in attempting to make my own mead, good idea riverbee!

I've got it running now, it's been boiling for about 15 minutes. I'm using a double boiler was going to filter it through cheesecloth but I might try an old shirt instead. I bought a large pot very cheaply to melt wax in. Because of what you've said, I think I'll set up that and melt wax in two bots, one with double boiler and one without. I'm not entirely sure why you suggest to not use the double boiler method, I'm inexperienced with rendering beeswax but I was under the impression that such was the best method to melt on a stovetop.

Interesting about washing the wax first. A lot of my wax has a lot of honey in it still, it's a bit wet, should I wash this and then discard the honey water?

I'm not so fussed if there's lots of gunk underneath afterwards. I just need to deal with the moth, I can filter it at a later date.

[omnimirage]

What's the purpose of washing the wax first? Should I wash just the sticky wax, or all of it?

[riverbee]

all of it omni........

cappings, washes all the honey and a great deal of debris out of it, making less work for you to the end result of melting and filtering the wax with whatever method is used.

you ought not to boil wax omni, boiling will discolor it.  i see this on you tube, it is not necessary, i think folks think that this will 'boil' out all the junk. it might but you will darken your wax.  water is necessary to release the honey from cappings and comb, but there is no need to boil it and no need to boil it for 15 minutes. i think the only time i might let wax boil is with old dark brood comb.

if you just throw any comb or cappings in a double boiler, and try to filter, you won't have clean wax, and it may not filter well.
double boiling of wax is best done AFTER the wax has been cleaned and filtered by another method. yeah i know, i see all these videos on you tube about rendering bees wax using double boiler method.  it is a good method, although best done with clean or relatively clean wax, therefore requiring less filtering or final filtering. 

if your wax has honey in it and still wet, wash it, discard the water. you will be amazed once you render the wax/filter it. little to no honey residue.

[omnimirage]

Alright interesting thanks. So I've got a big pot going, I haven't got the time to let it cool down in the pot so after I've cooked it, I've just poured it straight into a bucket. It's very dirty in there since I didn't strain any of it out. Is it a bad idea to pour this stuff through an old t-shirt? Does it not work due to adding water into the pot? Is it best to just let it sit, then scoop it off the bottom? All the gunk hasn't appeared to settle at the bottom of it but its still settling.

[riverbee]

probably best if you just let the wax cool down in the original pot, but if you poured into a bucket straight away while it was still 'hot', all the gunk will settle to the bottom of the wax cake in the bucket you poured into. it's looks dirty now, let it settle. the junk will settle down to the bottom.

let it harden and settle omni. don't mess with it or try to pour through a t shirt or other filtering material for now.  you can remelt and filter/refine later.

lol, gonna have a hard time trying to get the wax cake out of that bucket without a little coaxing...........

[omnimirage]

By the time I melt down the next batch, the stuff in the bucket hardens, would it be okay just to pour it over the top? I figure it'll be quite a challenge removing wax from the bucket afterwards.