With some hammer and putty knife action, followed by bending the smaller side of the frame (the bottom), I actually was able to snap out the frame as Michael suggested I could. This emptied the medium frames for the starter strips.
I put the comb over plastic from the old medium in a plastic garbage bag. Maybe I'll take it to the next bee meeting and see if anyone wants it - after all, it's drawn comb, albeit large cell.
Then I took the frames for two hive bodies (20 frames) and waxed in starter strips. I'll put the boxes on the hives before I leave for work in the morning. I now have a wax tube fastener, but it didn't come with instructions, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to make the thing work. I gave up and used the bread pan again - worked fine. I now have a metal tube filled with wax that would not for love nor money come out of the tiny hole at the end. I'm going to post on Beemaster to find out how to use the !#$)%&#$%&)@ things.
Hi Linda!
ReplyDeletePlease let me know if you figure out how to use the wax tube fastener. I also bought one and tried to use it and it failed miserably.
From what I could tell, I need to heat up the metal tube part first in the boiling water while melting the wax, because the tube was cold and the melted wax went into it and immediately coagulated (especially in the little hole at the end where it is supposed to come out). The wax transferred its heat to the tube which then held the heat well (hot to the touch for a long time afterwards).
I ended pouring the melted wax into a plastic cup and then dribbling that into the groove, but first I put the starter strip in the groove, otherwise the wax hardened way too quickly for me to put it in.