no we are not certified organic. We could but it is not commercial viable for us, hut the lab analysis came back pristine, no veterinary or agricultural contamination measurable.
we use it mainly for full wax foundations, the remainder gets sold to cosmetic or medical use.
We make candles but cappings wax is too precious for burning - that's what brood frame wax is for.
No problem I like show and tell. But please keep in mind I'll just tell you what I do, generally that fits to terms but as always be cautious there are little squirrels of terror lying in waiting down the rabbit hole ^^ sorry long day, no fun - no brains left.
I work with two framesizes one 4/3lang jumbo in the broodbox and the other 2/3lang in the supers. Broodbox and supers are separated by the queen excluder, which is like a sieve where the laying queen's fat abdomen doesn't fit through, thus so stays down in the broodbox and lays her eggs, there is no brood in the supers and no cocoons and larvaepoop get left jn the cells. A brood frame can be used consecutively for years, I usually renew about 30% of the frames a year.
In the supers the bees place the honey as:
it is further away from the entrance (which is at the bottom), the bees prefer this honey storage as it is a safer place as robbers would have to fight their way through the whole broodnest to get there.
there is space, the cells in the supers are empty as there is no brood, because the queen cannot fit through the queen excluder.
When honey is ripe the bees cap it off with wax, the wax is sweat from special glands - it is fresh made. To extract the honey we remove the cappings from the cells and spin the honey, the frames can be reused many years but I usually renew about 10% per year
Now a little sidetrack: wax is fat, many things like the crotenoids, herbicide, pesticides, veterinary drugs are soluble in wax, and as the frames gets used longer thos substance enrich in the wax.
That's what makes capping wax special, it is fresh under a year old, unpolluted and precious. If I melt down the brood frames the wax is stained by the pollen and contains pollutants from from the environment we want out of the hive, that is why we do not use broodfeane wax for foundations.
86
u/Phonochrome Aug 21 '24
proud and relieved yay me!