Wax Extraction from Brood frames.

Beefriendly · Mar 28, 2020

Is it worth it?
Most say no you get so little back.
As I have quite a few damaged brood frames decided to see how much you can get back. The answer, as many will have suspected, is less than you actually started with!

I extracted wax from 10 National brood frames and recovered a shade under 19 oz of wax. Now an undrawn sheet of foundation weighs in at 2oz....so we got back less than we started with. The average weight of an empty drawn brood frames is around 8oz before extraction.

I'll leave if for you to judge whether it was worth extracting or not.

Swarm · Mar 28, 2020

You didn't mention the wonderful smell.

Beefriendly · Mar 28, 2020

Swarm said:
You didn't mention the wonderful smell.

Yes, the recovered wax is really nice and smells gorgeous, see picture.

enrico · Mar 28, 2020

I think you did well to get that much. A dribble is what I usually get from an old brood frame!
E

markjadams · Mar 28, 2020

What did you use to extract the wax?

Beefriendly · Mar 28, 2020

Used three honey buckets with water in the bottom, a tesco hessian bag clipped on the top as a filter to remove the crud. Just piled the comb onto the bags and stuck at 90C overnight in a warming cabinet (apimelter).
I've a few more to do so will have a better idea as to whether this is a typical yield after I've done a few more runs.

Parsonage Bees · Mar 28, 2020

I melted down 8 frames from a dead out last week and got 45g (1.6oz) /frame.

358g in total = 2.5 sheets of foundation at trade-in. ?

Put all the comb in a muslin type cloth bag and pushed it down to bottom of a deep pan of water on the stove letting the wax rise to the surface. Heating to 80-90degC. Took a while. Must have used quite a bit of gas.

Barbarian · Mar 28, 2020

I use a solar wax melter. I don't fancy the cost of artificial heating compared to the value of the wax reclaimed.
The crud left in the melter goes with the prunings for the local council to convert to compost. I could put it with the general waste which is incinerated but I don't want to increase the carbon in the air.

MerryBee · Mar 28, 2020

I agree - about 40-50g of wax per frame is all you get. Only worth it if you can put it in a solar extractor which has zero running costs.

Beefriendly · Mar 28, 2020

Parsonage Bees said:
I melted down 8 frames from a dead out last week and got 45g (1.6oz) /frame.

358g in total = 2.5 sheets of foundation at trade-in. ?

Put all the comb in a muslin type cloth bag and pushed it down to bottom of a deep pan of water on the stove letting the wax rise to the surface. Heating to 80-90degC. Took a while. Must have used quite a bit of gas.

Do you have any recovery figures for super frames?

As most of the wax we recover sells at around £1 oz ( or did sell when we could trade) it's viable for us. Wax exchange at Thornes is 8 brood sheets per pound costing £1.63 in their conversion.
My insulated apimelter is quite energy efficient.

Courty · Mar 28, 2020

I’m in the middle of extracting a pile of old brood comb, squashed and put in thick tights and heated in water on a gas job. It will need further melting in water and straining because it has lots of crud in it. It’s a pain, but will be good for candles.
A solar extractor would be much easier, not much sun during the time I’d be extracting in Yorkshire. I fancy getting or making one though. Has anyone tried the solar tracking one’s? Must be more efficient.
I hate to waste wax.
I’ll be trying more foundationless frames this year so I’m not into trading in for sheets.
Extracting brood wax may be more trouble than it’s worth but I still enjoy it.

Courty

Parsonage Bees · Mar 28, 2020

Beefriendly said:
Do you have any recovery figures for super frames?

As most of the wax we recover sells at around £1 oz ( or did sell when we could trade) it's viable for us. Wax exchange at Thornes is 8 brood sheets per pound costing £1.63 in their conversion.
My insulated apimelter is quite energy efficient.

No figure for super frames. This is the first time I've measured the amount of wax accurately.

When you quote the figure of £1/oz why wouldn't you recover the wax.

Anduril · Mar 28, 2020

Looking at a Canadian Beekeeper’s Blog on YouTube, he got 15 lbs of wax out of his slumgum, I'd say that was worth it. The slumgum then crumbled like cake, no big solid lumps. This proves that if you accumulated enough over the years and then render it, you would see the amount that you normally throw away.

drex · Mar 29, 2020

I just bung mine in a solar melter. Take it for wax exchange. Well worth it.
Have already processed some old brood frames in the sunshine last week.
Good monetary gains for little labour.

Beefriendly · Mar 29, 2020

Parsonage Bees said:
When you quote the figure of £1/oz why wouldn't you recover the wax.

I am.....

pargyle · Mar 29, 2020

I recover wax from brood frames in my solar melter. I found that the best way is to put one frame at a time in there and support it (I use four wooden clothes pegs) - this way the wax drips out from the frame and leaves behind the web of slumgum/propololis. If you just cut the comb out from the frame and pile it up in the melter a lot of the wax gets trapped in the mess of slum gum and the recovery is not as efficient. I turn the frame over when it stops dripping out and you get a bit more out. You need a fairly sunny day and constant sunshine otherwise some wax does get stuck. Occasionally bits of comb drop out of the frame but it's better than piling it all up.

You still don't get huge quantities of wax out of the frames but as the sun costs nothing it's worth it for the few ounces you get.

Some of the the slumgum then goes off to make my propolis varnish as there is quite a bit of propolis in slumgum.

OXFORDBEE · Mar 30, 2020

Have just processed several 12 frame National deep boxes. Four cakes of wax I weighed came in at 911, 918, 920 and 1050g of wax. About 80g of wax per frame as an average. This is the gross weight. Contamination is minimal I’m using a Swienty wax cleaner which runs off a hose pipe and produces a continuous head of steam. I’ve insulated the steamer to help keep it hot at low temperatures. As the wax drops due to gravity I give the frames about 45min steaming time per 12 frames.

citrus · Mar 31, 2020

MerryBee said:
I agree - about 40-50g of wax per frame is all you get. Only worth it if you can put it in a solar extractor which has zero running costs.

Or use a slow cooker/crockpot and it helps it is a sunny day and my solar panels are giving me free power

Buzzlodge · Mar 31, 2020

pargyle said:
Some of the the slumgum then goes off to make my propolis varnish as there is quite a bit of propolis in slumgum.

How do you get the propolis from the slumgum?

pargyle · Apr 1, 2020

Buzzlodge said:
How do you get the propolis from the slumgum?

I just add the slumgum to methylated spirits .. in a jar, shake it daily for about a week, drain the resultant liquid through a sieve - use the mixture of dissolved propolis in meths as a varnish for the inside of new hives. I suspect that if you let the meths evaporate you would end up with some propolis - how much I have no idea as I've only ever used it as varnish. Leaves the inside of a new hive smellling very bee like and saves them the trouble of doing it themselves (which they will). I usually put two or three coats on.

Great for the inside of bait hives as well.

Wax Extraction from Brood frames.

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