Necessity is the Mother of Invention

[SteveJ]

Few weeks back I bought four brood boxes from a certain auction site. They soon arrived and they came with frames and comb. Now not wanting to spread disease I decided to reclaim the wax for exchange and burn the frames.

So the question is how to reclaim the wax. Now I have a solar wax extractor but its not the weather for solar wax extraction. So I got myself a bain marie and started melting wax on the stove in the kitchen. So a brood and a half of wax later and threats of divorce in the air. It was decided for me that I needed to find a better way of extraction.

All I really need to do is raise the temperature of the wax up to melting point. So I went and looked at the solar wax extractor again obviously not warm enough but what if I added a little steam to the equation. So I dug out the old wallpaper stripper. Now the difficulty here was how do I connect the hose to the extractor. This was solved by getting an M12 machine screw and using a drill press drilling a 4mm hole straight down the middle. Drilling a suitable hole in the extractor and connecting the hose.

Solution found wax extracting.

View attachment 3316

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View attachment 3318

 

[nelletap]

I am very impressed.

Tricia

 

[oliver90owner]

Why not simply pass the steam (through a connector) into the brood boxes with a ply sheet top. The wax will pool into the bottom similar cover or run out if a small oultet is made and the whole thing placed on the slant tpowards the outlet at the lowest point?

Do 11/12 frames all at once, only need to use the one box (transfer frames in and out). A hole in the roof sized for a short length of suitable hose-pipe and job organised. KISS works!


Me? I would melt it out in the Burco boiler. But there again I would not buy in potentially diseased wax in the first place and the frames would likely be burned instead, although boiling up in a lye solution is pretty well certain to destroy any heat resistant disease spores on the frames.

Regards, RAB

 

[bees knees]

That's great. I'm thinking I might just use a plastic box and metal bits like that as a solar extractor rather than trying to build one properly.
Does anyone use something similar usually? Presumably that would work well in the sun.
BK

 

[Mike a]

I just steamed the whole lot, see video section for my prototype

Brood chamber & frames (from one of my colonies from 2009)

 

[SteveJ]

Just a further design note. You need to drill a small hole in the bottom of the box to get rid of the condensate. Also I 've found a bit of varroa mesh placed vertically accross the tray stops the hole getting clogged. Also need to find someway of stopping the tray overflowing.

Why not simply pass the steam (through a connector) into the brood boxes with a ply sheet top. The wax will pool into the bottom similar cover or run out if a small oultet is made and the whole thing placed on the slant tpowards the outlet at the lowest point?

Do 11/12 frames all at once, only need to use the one box (transfer frames in and out). A hole in the roof sized for a short length of suitable hose-pipe and job organised. KISS works!


Me? I would melt it out in the Burco boiler. But there again I would not buy in potentially diseased wax in the first place and the frames would likely be burned instead, although boiling up in a lye solution is pretty well certain to destroy any heat resistant disease spores on the frames.

Regards, RAB

Thought about that but I didn't want to spend any money. Didn't have any spare ply but I did have an M12 machine screw.

SteveJ

 

[Finman]

.
I have the same steemer.

If you insulate the plastic box, melting is more efficient. In simple box heat escapes.

 

[Dishmop]

Also need to find someway of stopping the tray overflowing.

Bigger tray?

or how about a melting tray with mesh floor, the melted wax runs to the bottom of the box and out of a hole into a collection tray outside the box.... The box would obviously need to be at an angle..

 

[nonstandard]

Nice honeycomb detail in the bottom of the plastic box