A Question for TheHoneyPump and Others

[Ben Framed]

  Mr Claude, With all the wax that your family produces each year, I am guessing that the capping wax is probably the highest quality. Now, to the questions.   

  I know that an operation such as is yours and your family, wax is a consideration of your efforts. May I ask what is the schedule for melting down comb wax such as brood wax, honey comb wax etc? In other words, how do you determine which, when, and what type wax is to be melted season to season, and which is retained for the next season?
  What about some of you other beekeepers which produce enough wax to be a consideration of extra income or foundation molding?  How do you determine the above questions?
Thanks, Phillip Hall   "Ben Framed"

[robirot]

I do two things.
Wax from cappings, scraping and bur comb, and wax containing buyed foundation.

Both of them are seperated and made into new foundation.

The one from the fresh wax is perfect for use as foundation, the one other is getting sold to other beekeepers or used for candlemaking.


I hope that i have all buyed comb wax rotated out in 2 years.

Once that is achieved, i will continue to rotate some surplus out, to Jeep the wax clean.
Candlemaking gives way more money, but selling to other beeks is way faster and sells more, no big questions ask or negotiations.

The processing is done by a company who reworks your own wax into foundation.

But also i'm using more and more plastic foundation, for waxing that i use only fresh wax.

[TheHoneyPump]

Schedule?  Not sure how to answer that. 
Summer is bees and honey production. Winter is wax processing.
Separate and sort raw materials by type and grade.
Start the processing on one sorted lot, keep on until it is finished.
Prep the equipment for the next lot.
Start the processing on the next sorted lot, keep on until it is finished.
Repeat until all is done.

Brood combs are replaced on a 5 year interval.  Accomplished by replacing 2 combs per year, in the 10 frame box.

[blackforest beekeeper]

We do similar to robirot.
Cappings and burr-comb AND natural comb (even breed-combs) go into our own foundation. Just had 50 kg re-worked by a company doing that. The combs that have been drawn on foundation before are melted separatly and sold as "Euro-Organic-Bio-Wax". The before is "Bioland"-quality, which sells twice the price (or has to be bought....). We have never used "bought" foundation from stores, always "Bioland"-quality (almost highest organic wax-quality) from other Bioland-beeks. But that is special for our organic beekeeping.
I mix the bred-in-natural-combs with the cappings (not when melting and processing, only for making foundation) because
1. not enough wax otherwise as we are still expnading.
2. foundation gets a bit more elastic that way.
3. if I had enouhg cappings, I might skip reason 1 and 2 and sell the wax from natural brood combs, too.

We have a lot of natural comb in the brood-boxes.

Once your beekeeping is at its size you ought to be able to have enough wax for yourself and even sell off. just keep on sorting out, candle or selling wax that is built on foundation of bought origin once you can afford that.
lots of natural-comb in nucs and swarms will make this faster.

[Ben Framed]

Thanks for your replys ..
Phillip