Steam powered wax removal.

[martin.henwood]

I'm thinking of taking BeeBase advice and using my domestic steam wallpaper stripper to recover old wax from frame etc. Having converted to poly hives I have some old wooden National hives I could use.

I wonder if anyone has used this method of wax recovery, and if they have any advice on the issue? Also advice as to how to separate the wax from any residue honey and other debris?

Cheers.

 

[Tom Bick]

I am going to do the same this year but will probably construct a simple ply box to save any possible warping to one of my nationals.
As I am yet to do it I don’t have all the answers but would expect the wax, honey, water and some debris to run out of the box together and the wax to float on the honey and water. After it has cooled it will be a simple job to pick up the wax wash and it will be ready for reheating and fine filtering to remove bits from the wax.
Generally it is advised to use rain water when dealing with melted wax although a couple of people on this site mentioned a while back as you are boiling the water then tap water is ok? but I would play safe and get the water from the odd bucket that is always full at this time of year.

 

[enrico]

It's really easy. If you have an old hive put it all together including the old mesh floor. Put all this on a piece of aluminium or tray. If you can angle this to a sort of spout it helps to collect the wax. Tilt the hole thing forwards so that the melting wax will run towards the spout. Drill a hole in the hive somewhere to take the tube from the wallpaper stripper. Load up with old frames and turn it on. Eventually it all melts off the frames. The large pieces of cr..p get trapped on the mesh floor, the rest runs out of the spout into a container. Leave to cool and the wax will float, wash under a tap. Scrap the old honey etc.

 

[itma]

I'm thinking of taking BeeBase advice and using my domestic steam wallpaper stripper to recover old wax from frame etc. Having converted to poly hives I have some old wooden National hives I could use.

I wonder if anyone has used this method of wax recovery, and if they have any advice on the issue? Also advice as to how to separate the wax from any residue honey and other debris?

Cheers.

Shouldn't be any harm in using a poly box (better insulated, so less energy use), but if you are going to hack any bits about (steam hose hole etc) then a near-scrap thing would be better!


You can do quite a lot to clean up 'raw' wax by simply melting it over boiling water.
Get an old tallish saucepan (that will henceforth be dedicated to beeswax) half-fill with water, add beeswax, boil gently, stir, and set aside to ... set! (And cool completely.)
The wax shrinkage means it doesn't stick to the sides of the pan.
But you'll find some crud on the bottom of the wax layer - cut/scrape this off and add to the next lot of raw wax.
Having a 'tall' pot means that you only get a 'small' layer of crud to remove.
I found a tall stainless steel 'asparagus' pot at a boot fair.

 

[martin.henwood]

So, it seems this idea is a runner.

There also seems to be mileage in using steam to help in the cleaning of poly hives.

Cheers

 

[BeeJayBee]

There also seems to be mileage in using steam to help in the cleaning of poly hives.

Careful.

If you use a directed steam jet on polystyrene you might, maybe, force steam between the granules and affect the stability of the surface in the same way as forcing steam into the grain of wood can damage the grain.

 

[dclewis]

Do it this time of year when the bees aren't flying or esle do it where they can't get access.

I made the mistake of doing it in the open in the autumn and had hundreds of bees scorched/drowning in mass in the liquid collected(must have been some residual honey in the combs).

I found it took quite a while to get the temp up inside your box before things melted and in the end wondered about the efficiency/cost of the the whole operation.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I found 20 Manley frames that had been cut comb uncleaned in the shed.....oops!
Persuaded husband to take the wedges out while I dunked them in a large pan of hot washing soda solution. Job done in half an hour but a steamer seems such a good idea.

 

[itma]

The "steamer" permits collection of the wax, but it does not substitute for proper (poly) hive (and frame) sanitisation with washing soda (and bleach) as per the 'best practice' described in the various Beebase downloads.


There are numerous threads already on the forum describing steam wax extraction - using the forum 'search' facilities would be worthwhile.

 

[Eyeman]

I found it took quite a while to get the temp up inside your box before things melted and in the end wondered about the efficiency/cost of the the whole operation.

Using a ratchet strap around the whole setup to help seal any gaps where the steam can escape helps. Also if you want to render cappings or brace comb then using an small eke rather than a shallow box quickens the process.
If using a hive box then remove any plastic frame runners as they tend to warp.

 

[moo]

Decent wee cobbled together system anyone could set up :: http://youtu.be/Wzkxq7qGqxQ