Making your own wax frames

[mccheyne]

Has anyone tried making their own wax frames with some sort of mold? I know the importance of having prebuilt comb for honey production and was wondering if anyone has thought about melting down some wax, pouring it into a pin laden mold and presto - instant complete wax frame without making the bees work hard at it! Can anyone think of any problems that might arise from trying out something like this?

The frame could still use wood around its perimeter to hold the weight.

Hmmm..

Mccheyne

 

[oliver90owner]

Is this a genuine inquiry or spam? Are you connected with any particular mould supplier?

Making foundation is no particular bother but if you are suggesting any deeper than that, lets hear a bit more.

RAB

 

[mccheyne]

Haha.. I guess my one post and ambiguity in that post would lead to that concern - no this is not spam and no, I am not a mold supplier or maker - or have anything to do with commercial production of molds (and since this is the internet, you'll just have to take my "virtual" word on it ).

I was merely trying to see if anyone has "cast" a wax frame before and why this wouldn't be a good choice instead of going with plastic foundation or wax foundation with wire structure?

Cheers,

Mccheyne

 

[BKF Admin]

There is an African beekeeping website that has some instructions and pics.
I will dig out the link.

 

[mccheyne]

awesome!

 

[oliver90owner]

no this is not spam and no, I am not a mold supplier or maker

In that case, welcome to the forum.

The 'complete wax frame' bit is the surprise. The section of the heagon is verrrry slim.

Regards, RAB

 

[RoofTops]

You can get a flexible mould which casts sheet foundation which then has to be fitted to wired frames. I used one for a while but the process is slow and the sheets are much more brittle than rolled foundation. I've now transferred over to plastic foundation. Quicker and cheaper for me.

 

[fredbloggs]

Thxxxes used to do a roller system complete with tray. If they still do, when you see the price, you'll recind your concept re making life easy for the bees!

 

[hedgerow pete]

so lets start from the top, pet hate first, where are you mccheyne?????????

so what are you talking about the actual proccess of casting and or rollering a standard foundation sheet of wax is simple enough and if you try thr search button here or on the many web searches you will find lots of ideas and suggestions.

BUT if you are trying to suggest that you want to cast a honey comb cell into a sheet of wax on both sides ??

sorry its not worth doing it. try this idea,

to produce such a fine wall thickness to the cells you would have no other choice but to use a sillicon or metal mould and then you would have to use either centrafugal force or high pressure to inject the wax into the cavities, if you were very lucky and managed to get the mould completley filled with wax you will then has the problem of trying to retrack the mould from the wax sheet without it falling apart.

now unless you happen to have the odd injection moulding machine and tooling spare kicking around your garage you are going to have to spend thousands on the tooling alone .

so money wise we can go and buy when needed a few sheets of patterned flat wax for say a quid each for when ever you get around to buying your hive and or bees or spend say for a conservative figure of roughly £150k to make the sheets for your first hive, cost equation blows your idea out of the water , sorry

think of it this way when a bee swarm arrives at its new home it carries no wax sheets at all and yet they still start and carry on working. if you try the search button you will find several threads on wax foundations some people only use a strip 30mm wide others use full sheets

 

[Queens59]

Some bee supply companies do 'deeper' foundation e.g KBS if that is your concern.It is a bit less work for the girls...

 

[Arfermo]

DIY Foundation making

Have a look at these links

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/herring.html
http://www.apiservices.com/leclercq/wax.htm
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2006/february/beeswaxmould.htm
and then look at apge 14 in Thxxxnes catalogue.

Not really worth the effort unless you want experiment and/or go commercial.

 

[mccheyne]

Full comb product

Thank you very much for the replies. I am located in Alberta, Canada and apologize if this is a UK specific forum (if it helps I also hold a British passport and worked on the RIOE for a year and a half in Edinburgh). I checked out the links and they are helpful, but look like they are more related to just foundation creation.

It is not my intention to create a thin wax foundation (rolled wax with cell configuration imprint), but fully drawn out comb. I know it does not seem to make sense, but lets just say I did have an injection molding machine, or the right tools to do such a thing (I wish, but lets just say).

I know I would be dealing with very fine wax cell lining, that would be subject to some sort of suction force during the removal of the mold plate (which would be comprised of pins at the right angle - removed at the right angle too). I figured I could get around the suction force by flash heating the mold to just enough to allow for a little bit of lubrication and hopefully an area where air can return back into the cell void. The wax is already known to handle a roller press (for pressed foundation), so its just a matter of how much depth you can get away with before the wax starts breaking apart.

In my eyes, if this could be done (in a cost effective way) it would be very beneficial to the beekeeper and the bees. Bad comb would be easily replaceable, no more worry about the depth of decaping in the extraction room, and a startup hive would be out the door running. Also, in the advent of keeping things natural - it would be pretty much be natural. With the wire or plastic reinforcement, I could see them breaking apart in an extractor - but, than again.. you could do away with the extractor and merely remove the entire comb of honey - and then mold a new wax comb in.

DIY stuff is considerably cheaper these days, you can buy a small injection press for $1200/usd. Or, if you got the right configuration - you could "in theory" go the route of 3d modeling and buy a machine like the "thing-o-matic" for $1100/usd and plot your own comb (but that would be very time consuming).

A little off topic, does anyone know if rubber has been used in the same fashion as fully drawn out plastic combs or metal combs?

 

[Polyanwood]

Welcome to the forum.

Would it be worth it mccheyne? I would have thought the cost would be high. I think that there are also probably benefits to cell sizes being determined by the bees, and this moves still further away from this.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I would think it would be very difficult to do,but if it was possible,you could also perhaps fill the comb with the imitation honey that is available,seal it over.....and hey presto...no need for bee's anymore,instant comb honey.

 

[mccheyne]

Would it be worth it mccheyne? I would have thought the cost would be high. I think that there are also probably benefits to cell sizes being determined by the bees, and this moves still further away from this.

Yeah, the cost could be high - at least initially. Much like a full blown 120 frame extractor for $100,000/usd seems high. I'm not really trying to justify the cost here, or even think about it - I am assuming I can do this on a cost basis. I would like to find out if people would like the idea of it, or have problems with it (much like your concern about bees determining the cell size).

Along those lines, I have observed that the honeycomb drawn out (by bees) on a cell imprinted foundation sheet is almost always exactly produced to the size and design of that initial cell imprint. In that case, the bees have already expanded on and seem to have no problem with the pattern.
I have also observed bees will store honey in any cell size ranging from worker - drone, as well as in circular cells compared to hexagonal - making me think that they are not as picky for honey storage. Cell size is of course important for worker/drone brood, and for the brood chambers one could implement a different mold that makes a comb with worker cells in the middle and a few drone cells near the edges of the comb.

Hivemaker - I'll assume that isn't sarcastic. Yes, this may be a better way to make real comb honey for sale (we all know comb honey is much more expensive to produce since the comb is removed as the final product instead of just the honey).

 

[Hivemaker.]

Yes that was serious,some are a bit more than annoyed about imitation honey already,doing instant comb honey could really blow some gaskets.

 

[mccheyne]

I could see that. Well, I would use only real beeswax - the overall intention is too make it easier on the bees to do their job - it shouldn't be a longshot idea away from "natural"- we make make boxes out of wood and create an entire house for them to live in instead of log hives, we clean up their living spaces and introduce new queens every now and then, I wouldn't think anyone would have a problem of comb created with beewax and formed to be just like bee-manfactured comb - if anything, you would be removing an unnatural product of plastic foundation.

 

[Polyanwood]

Use of plastic foundation is unusaul in the UK, althouhg most of us use wax foundation, which we know often contains undesirable things.


I think their might be a market for drawn National brood and super frames though. I think it would mainly be anxious people with fat wallets, but hey, it would be a service.

 

[GingerNut]

I think this could be a good idea, and could catch on.

It would save a lot of drawing for the bees, and would make starting a new colony quicker.

Making the mould double sided could be the main problem.

Yours Roy

 

[Hivemaker.]

If it were possible,i think there would be more problems in storing and packaging/posting large quantitys of this drawn comb,plus would be removing to some extent a need for bee's to do what they do naturally...draw comb,lots of redundant young waxworkers making swarm cells instead.