Fun and Facts about Wax

Last week I was the speaker at my local bee club meeting.  I have given lots of talks and wanted to try something different so I talked about Fun and Facts about Wax!  I covered a lot of facts about wax and then talked about melting it, employing it in making candles, lip balm, lotion, swarm lure, etc., and ended with enjoying it.

I am giving the same talk at the Potato Creek Beekeepers Club in Griffin, GA on Thursday, November 20 at 7 PM - here's where they meet in case any of you are in the area and want to come:
Spalding County Extension Office, located at 835 Memorial Dr., Griffin, GA 30224

A few fun facts that I had such fun collecting!

• Wax has been found in shipwrecks that is extremely old and still is a lovely product
• Beeswax has always been valued because it burns slowly and without smoke
• Back in 181 BC (a long, long, long time ago) the Romans conquered the Corsicans and then taxed the Corsicans 100,000 pounds of beeswax a year
• Like honey from China is contaminated with things other than honey, wax in ancient times was often extended with things like sand so guilds developed to protect the purity of the product.  Some of those guilds are still in existence today
• One pound of beeswax supports 22 pounds of honey - that means that in a medium ten frame box, which full of honey holds about 40 pounds (4 pounds/frame), the amount of beeswax in that same box would be a little less than 2 pounds.

I could go on and on.....so many fun facts to learn about wax.  

Of course one of the most important facts about wax is that if you are not going to use it right away, don't let the wax moths have a feast.  Store it in your freezer!

I get asked a lot to give talks but this was a particularly fun one - I think because often I am talking about topics that get controversial reactions - like foundationless frames, crush and strain honey harvesting, simple beekeeping.  

This topic was universally accepted and I think everyone there enjoyed the talk - or at least a lot of people came up afterward to tell me they did.

Potato Creek is a new bee club which I am proud to support.  GBA has a number of new bee clubs and this one was just welcomed into GBA at the fall meeting.  So if you are around, come to the meeting on November 20 and hear my talk about Fun and Facts about Wax!

(Bear Kelley, president of the Georgia Beekeepers Association and 2014 Beekeeper of the Year, is the speaker in October:  On the 16th)

Bee Report - After First Freezing Night

Last night we had freezing temps - not for too long, but long enough for my fig tree's leaves to curl up. This morning I worried about the bees. I was out of town last weekend so I haven't checked them in two weeks, and I didn't know if more food were needed.

I opened the top of Mellona and didn't see a bee. There were a few stragglers on the outside, but I only saw a silverfish on the top cover and no bees. My heart sank....not another absconded hive. It was warmer - about 50 - so I lifted up the second box and under it the bees were clustering! I was thrilled and hoped I didn't chill them too much. I immediately put the hive back together.

I left them with a bag of new 2:1 sugar syrup on top of the frames and took the propping stick out of the tops of both hives.

Bermuda was active and clearly doing fine. I'll give them sugar syrup tomorrow because I needed to make more and it will be too hot to put on the hives until tomorrow. It actually will cool pretty quickly but I can only work on the bees today while my grandson is asleep and he'll wake up before the new syrup cools.

I did other things to help with the cold. I removed the shim that I had put on both hives to help with ventilation and with the small hive beetle trap. I removed both small hive beetle traps to clean and get ready for next year. I refilled their water source which in our drought-suffering Georgia had completely dried up.

FWIW, the weather reports show no rain at any time in the near future.

Honey super for Proteus hive

Last year when I harvested honey, I used the crush and strain method. This means that you cut the comb out of the frame and crush it to get the honey. There's a good description also that I posted on the Beemaster forum.

The frames are left with remnants of comb. I put the frames back in the hive in a super for the bees to clean up. Little remnants of comb were left on the edges of the frame. I then removed the frames and put them in the freezer overnight to kill any wax moth eggs that might be present.

Now I have the frames with the remnants left for the bees to use as guides to draw comb. Below you can see what one looks like.

















Below here is a frame sitting on the other frames so you can also see down into the box to see the frame already installed with a comb remnant on it.

















In the center of the box I put an almost fully formed comb to keep the bees in line.

















Here is Proteus at its taller height with a new box to use for honey.