making your own wax foundation

[markfitz]

hi there, anyone ever tried doing this, with the price of wax foundation being high I was thinking of making my own but don't know how, can anyone advise me what equipment I need and how it can be done, thanks

 

[VEG]

Just let the bees draw out their own.
There is plenty of kit available to make your own but very pricey and you would never likely get the cost back


Craig

 

[masterBK]

I used to make my own foundation years ago. Now that my association bulk buys the stuff it is so cheap it isn't worth making it yourself.

 

[REDWOOD]

There was someone on here last year that bought a device for doing this and posted some photos, It looked a long drawn out process but if you have the time and patience hey ho go for it

 

[VEG]

I think it was bee crazy

Found it here it is

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=22266

 

[Madge]

You don't need expensive equipment. Somebody pointed me to this video. I found using strips work better than casting full flat sheets of wax (without imprints) which is what I have done.
Kitta
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ovKSO-v4g"]Beeswax strips for Warré top bar beehives - YouTube[/ame]

 

[mbc]

Some things are best done by mass production.

 

[VEG]

it would be easier to cut up sheets of foundation into starter strips than faff around with that wax.

 

[pargyle]

Personally I'd go foundationless ... just need a bit of a starter strip to get them going .. I use a triangular timber strip and paint it with (Thornes Organic) melted beeswax.

But ... there is a method that you can make your own in Bill Bielby's book that I've just read "Home Honey Production".

He suggests making a two part mould using existing pieces of foundation as the former, the foundation is glued to a piece of glass to get it perfectly flat and timber edging pieces are added around the former to create a dam into which dental plaster is poured to create the actual moulds from which sheets of foundation can be cast and pressed.

Looks fairly strightforward and I would think that casting silicon could be substuted as a modern equivalent for dental plaster ..

If you have nothing better to do with your time and plenty of your own beeswax to make the foundation then it sounds like a plan (If a little like hard work to me !).

 

[IBeeHere]

In a similar vein to the moulds with exhisting foundation and plaster, you can use silicon rubber (eg Polycraft Silicone Mould Making rubber) mould taken from a plastic foundation sheet which can give good results.

 

[BeeJayBee]

At the moment I use starter strips. I cut a strip of foundation about 2-3 inches wide, and then cut it again, diagonally. Attach as normal.

 

[hedgerow pete]

making your own foundation sheets is extreamly easy to do and make.

you can spend 5 grand and buy a rolling machine to do so or follow these ideas

you need some thing to form a flat wax sheet and then another form to make the foundation pattern

to make my foundation i either go for a large dipping tank, it holds a load of wax and when a damp sheet of ply wood is dipped into it it produces a pair of flat wax sheets about 3mm thick, trim with a blunt knife and then stack inbetween news paper sheets to store them.
you can also pour moulton wax onto a damp flat sheet wait for it to cool and then again the blunt knife to remove it from the former

once you have the required size and quantites we can consider the pattern.
yes you can buy silicone formers and the like even as far as a pair of beautifull milled rollers to roll the flat sheets with, but they all cost a lot more money than i have. the cheapest i have seen is £100 plus.

what you can do is to use a clean sheet of foundation and then use fibreglass to make a hard sheet

once you have a fibreglass sheets what you do is to put a warm sheet of plain wax between them and then whallop them through an old managle to press the pattern into the sheet

 

[Little John]

I had a go at making plain (unembossed) foundation a while back - yes it can be done, but needs a lot of wax to initially prime the dipping tank.

Since them I've gone completely foundationless, and don't even use foundation starter 'strips' - either I use waxed lolly-pop sticks glued to Top Bars, or a thin strip (about 1 cell deep) of old black comb tacked onto the underside of a Frame top bar in half a dozen places using a soldering iron. The bees really love drawing comb from that.

I also tried one of the 'alternative' methods of creating a starter strip: using strips cut from fruit drink cartons, and then waxed. A couple of those worked really well, and then the bees started chewing-off the cardboard:

.

which tells me that they really don't like this idea very much.

LJ

 

[Madge]

I had a go at making plain (unembossed) foundation a while back - yes it can be done, but needs a lot of wax to initially prime the dipping tank.
...

I don't understand why the dipping tank needs priming, LJ, so I don't understand the need for a lot of wax.

When I made unembossed foundation, I only soaked the plywood moulding board thoroughly in water before pouring a thin layer of wax over it, and that worked fine. You don't need a lot of wax at all.

Kitta

PS: I suppose the answer it that I didn't 'dip' the board - I poured a thin layer of wax over the board.

 

[hedgerow pete]

a dipping tank i used to own was 500mm deep by 350mm wide by 100mm accross that means you need a shed load of wax to start with and a big hot water tank to use it in,

if you just want a cheap quick wax melter than buy at a car boot an electric frier chip pan they work well, you just need to knock the temp settings down

 

[Little John]

I don't understand why the dipping tank needs priming, LJ, so I don't understand the need for a lot of wax.
[...]
I suppose the answer it that I didn't 'dip' the board - I poured a thin layer of wax over the board.

Hi Kitta - that's right. I meant 'prime' as in 'fill for the first time' - for as Pete says, a tank built to produce full-sized sheets takes a helluva lot of wax.

When I made unembossed foundation, I only soaked the plywood moulding board thoroughly in water before pouring a thin layer of wax over it, and that worked fine. You don't need a lot of wax at all.

I tried doing that, but the results (for me) were very variable - and eventually I gave up trying.

I also tried dipping strips of fine insect netting into a shallow pan of molten wax - it sort of worked, but tended to melt and distort the plastic mesh.

And then, after one abortive attempt at queen rearing when a queen somehow got through a Q/X, I found that they'd very happily drawn comb from a strip of vertical cells melted onto a bar rather than q/cells - so now that has become my preferred method of starting combs off.

LJ

 

[Madge]

... I found that they'd very happily drawn comb from a strip of vertical cells melted onto a bar rather than q/cells - so now that has become my preferred method of starting combs off.

LJ

Somebody on the SBA forum mentioned that as well (but for apideas). I may try it next year.
K

 

[Little John]

Thought I'd quickly revive this thread, as earlier today I came across a FatBeeMan video which shows one of his mates using a flat plate to make a sheet of plain (unembossed) foundation. The video has 2 links (dunno why):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNlgTy-YERg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lU3C4f2Xfc

The video's a bit shaky - but stay with it - here's a captured still of him inverting the plate after immersion, to cool the wax, before making a second dip :

The main advantage to using this technique, is that you don't need a whole bucketful of wax to get started - even a couple of ounces would probably be enough.

LJ