Buckets of honeycomb infested by wax moth

[riverbee]

you can omni, it will just harden over the first batch and might leak down probably to some degree of whatever crevice from the first batch in the bucket.

good luck!

[rober]

 if you coat the buckets lightly with cooking oil the wax is easier to get out. I use a baking release spray. on most upright freezers the shelves are fixed & are part of the cooling coil system & cannot be adjusted. you mentioned laying one on it's side. all refrigerators & freezers need to be upright or the oil in the compressor will not be where it's needed & the compressor will fail. until you have time to build one you can put a pane of glass on top of a styrofoam cooler to make a solar wax melter. put a 2nd hand baking pan in the bottom & a wire rack with paper towels for a filter.

[riverbee]

what rober said about the simple melter!

doesn't even need to be styrofoam, any cooler works (without the lid). also a hive body. any sort of box contraption.

i have posted a pdf file on a simple melter made by a south african beek. the only thing i would do different is, use a square plastic tub. 1/4" hardware cloth, and window screen. clamp the hardware cloth over the tub/or pail, lay the window screen on top of that. if you want, use a sheet of bounty paper towel on top of that. put a little water in the bottom of your tub. lay your comb across the hardware cloth/screen/paper towel. put the glass on top and set in the sun.  the hardware cloth holds the comb in place and keeps chunks from falling in, window screening and paper towel filter.

[rober]

I have a couple Styrofoam boxes that are for shipping frozen food. the sides & bottom are 3" thick. i can put crystalized jars of honey in it with glass on top on 70* days & it gets warm enough to melt the honey. you could probably find one at a fish market.

[omnimirage]

I managed to get it all done. Had bit of a disaster, wax poured all over the pot and made a huge mess in the kitchen; my mother was very annoyed with me. The flame was from gas was exposed to wet warm-hot wax for possibly a few minutes which is pretty concerning. I've got three large buckets off solid beeswax now. They'll need a fair bit of purifying. All of the wax buckets looked like they had minimal, if any, signs of wax moth. The freezer goes down to -15c. I'm not sure how many days I should leave the infected honeybuckets in there, I'm thinking 4, but maybe 3 or even 5 would be better. The buckets show low signs of wax moth.


Does the cooking oil reduce the quality of the wax at all? Good to know about the freezer's air compressor! Thanks. That's a great idea, thanks rober.

Why would you use a round box riverbee? Is making round blocks of beeswax more practical? I like the idea of using hardware cloth with paper towel underneath. What would I do with the water afterwards?

Are all foam boxs just as good or are Styrofoam boxes better? What about glass, is there anything in particular that would work extra well? Is thick glass the best? riverbee mentioned window glass. I have glass from a car door but its not flat. I know someone who'd be able to build me something out of scrap stainless steel, would that be much better than a foam box?

[riverbee]

"Had bit of a disaster, wax poured all over the pot and made a huge mess in the kitchen; my mother was very annoyed with me. The flame was from gas was exposed to wet warm-hot wax for possibly a few minutes which is pretty concerning."

oops...........
i think jack has been banned from his wife's kitchen and probably some of the other guys!.......
this is what i dislike about wax on the stove top. and never throw water on it! you will ramp up a fire! use a fire extinguisher or baking soda.

although i am the einstein with an expensive wax melter that neglected to shut the valve when i poured melted hot wax back in it and 'waxed' my kitchen floor. i was barefoot......i guess that was a good thing, any shoes would have been relegated to attire worn outside.

i don't use a round box, i have a square solar melter and all my wax is filtered into milk cartons.  nice bricks.

also omni, you want the paper towel on top of the hardware cloth not below it.  as wax is melted, the paper towel filters as it runs through the hardware cloth. you can also use an old t-shirt or cotton material. (not cheesecloth). throw the water out, and not down the kitchen sink. the thickness of the glass doesn't matter. omni i can post plans for solar melters, i built my own, and many others have. 

[rober]

that's why I've stated on several threads get an electric hot plate or portable propane burner & make all sugar syrup & melt all wax OUTSIDE. I've seen videos on you tube where people were uncapping & extracting honey in the kitchen. if I ever did that when my wife was thru with me i'd be a soprano. the hot plate is slower than propane but safer as there is no open flame. on the melter any glass will do but heavier glass will be less prone to breakage. a stainless steel box should heat up just fine. I only mentioned foam coolers because they require no fabrication, are readily available, & are inexpensive. my solar melter is wooden with an angled hinged wood framed glass lid. the wax goes on a wire rack with a paper towel or restaurant grease filter on top of the rack. the wax runs thru the filter, falls onto a sloped baking sheet, & runs down to a stainless steel pan of water. the pan is a repurposed pan from a restaurant steam table

[Barbarian]

I have used glass as covers for my solar wax melters.
In time the glass has cracked. I think this must have been caused by the stress of the temperature variations.

[rober]

being a carpenter I come across a lot used glass. but if I was actually buying new glass for a melter i'd buy at least double strength window glass. single strength is especially prone to stress cracking. it's meant to hang vertically not laying flat.

[omnimirage]

Is there much advantage to stainless steel over a foam cooler other than the stainless steel being physically tougher to break? I'm wondering if it's even worth fabricating something. I've got myself an electric stove top that I can use outside now. Why do sugar syrup outside as well? I didn't know there were risks with that.

Would a double strength window be better than plexiglass?

I didn't fully close one of my buckets with the heated down beeswax in it, and sugar ants have gotten into it. I've completely closed it now, but there's still a good dozen or so of these ants in there. I'm not sure if they'll die from a lack of water or oxygen, or if they'll cause damage to my beeswax in there, not sure if I should try to squish them or remove the beeswax from the bucket and maybe melt it again. Any thoughts anybody?

[riverbee]

"I didn't fully close one of my buckets with the heated down beeswax in it, and sugar ants have gotten into it."



get them buggers out of there.........

lol, omni, just kiddin'........they will croak at some point. you said melted down beeswax? so, you just need to refine this to filter croaked sugar ants.

i can't answer your question about a stainless steel solar melter vs. a foam cooler.......anything works really.  my solar melters are wood. as far as what window to use? i have used single pane, but had the unfortunate opportunity to use double pane (window replacements with flaws).  they work great. single pane works great, just might get fogged or might even crack as rober said. if it works, use it until it doesn't! plexiglass works as well.

electric anything, vs, gas is always good. hot plate, stove top when it comes to messing with beeswax or sugar syrup.  it's just messy stuff, (especially beeswax) and can start things on fire.  most guys are not to proficient at not making messes when it comes to the kitchen or the wife's kitchen or your mother's kitchen............not saying you aren't but just saying.......... .......

i don't cook sugar syrup anymore for winter feed........i just do no cook sugar bricks, less mess in the kitchen and less labor for me, and works just as good.

for 2:1 sugar syrup, i bring water to just a boil in stock pot, turn it off.   line up buckets, dump sugar in, dump some hot tap water in stir. dump some hot water in from the stove top, stir. finish off with cooler water if need be.  feed bees. that's it. 

works for me, i usually don't have more than 5 or 6 hives.  a couple guy beeks i know with more hives use turkey fryers to boil water in, in the driveway, just outside the garage. line up the feeder pails with sugar in and dump the water in.  makes their wives happy.........

[apisbees]

Insulation to reduce heat loss is the most important. whether wood steel or foam cooler is used. cooler is insulated already. The ants are after the honey water under the wax. it should be good, I don't think they are eating the wax.

[omnimirage]

Is weather wood, and steel two different things or?

[riverbee]

omni, keith meant whether it's wood or steel or foam cooler, it doesn't matter, as keith said, as long as there is some insulation of some sort to reduce heat loss. my wood solar melter is lined with galvanized tin, but the window is attached to the box and is seated with thick window insulation strips/tape or whatever it's called around the frame that rests on the box.....
this is to reduce heat loss. works well.  also, like keith said, the ants are after the honey/honey water not the wax.

ps
sometimes we all misspell words when typing to answer a thread and sometimes the forum angels help out a little........