Torvy
Super Member
Wife just pulled about 12 lbs from our hive. We don't do anything cool with wax yet. Maybe that will bee a next year thing.
Beekeeping
- Thread starter LittleBittyBigJohn
- Start date
- Views: 88181
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
Wax cleaning is fun, IMHO, and the margins on lip balm are also awesome.
Wax cappings are great because they are so clean. Darker brood comb takes a little more work because of all of the cacoons.
fishin coyote
New member
What are you using to melt in, double boiler? I use a yard sale crockpot. Which takes a while but is nice in that I don’t have to babysit it the entire time
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
I put the whole lot in a wax pot on the stovetop with water. I melt it all down, pour through cheese cloth, clean wax floats, impurities stay in the cloth or water.
For the lip balm melt, I set the oven at 180F. I measure all the components, melt them together, place them in a glass kitchen measuring cup.
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
Assembled a few frames tonight. Got 8 more bee boxes ready for interior insulation.
RayIN
Veteran Member
Have you seen the commercial on TV where the man puts a bee hive together before reading instructions?
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
Negative
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
So this time around I enacted a few more quality control measures for these boxes in a box... Wow, what a difference. Keeping the inner and middle components aligned so that the outer panels align perfectly, has been a challenge. But this time around they are amazing. I planned to build these orders over winter... But it seems I'll be finished by Dec 1
ponytug
Super Member
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
I have begun measuring corner to corner for all of the interior walls to ensure they are centered to the bottom. Also made a jig to ensure the interior wall heights are correct and uniform. They are all within about .015" after assembly. Those set up your exterior walls, so if they are off, your exterior walls will be misaligned
It's really an issue of stacking tolerances as you build them from the inside out. The original plans do not address that issue or any ways to mitigate it. I've been building them for about 5 years and each time tweak the process. These are by far my best boxes ever.
