The Basingstoke Beekeeper

Spring 2002

Contents

Apiary Update

by David Purchase

Regular visits to St. John's Copse through the winter have revealed no problems. Hives have been 'hefted' for stores and floor inserts checked for dead varroa mites.

Late winter/early spring is the critical time for stores. This is when colonies that went into winter with inadequate food are most likely to die. One of the five colonies (the strongest) in St. John's is just on the 'light' side of adequate. It will be checked again very soon and fed if necessary.

Very few dead mites have been found on the inserts during the winter. Unless there is a sudden, and unexpected, increase in the next week or so, the colonies will almost certainly not have to be treated until August, following the removal of the honey crop. Spring treatment has never been necessary in Oakley and hopefully this year will be no different. There is no point in spending time and money on spring treatment unless it is absolutely necessary. It will only help to hasten the day when resistant mites are found in our area.

Bees have been active on mild days since January and it is, as ever, heartening to see pollen being collected. It is an indication that all is probably well within the colony. An absence of flying bees on a mild day could be indicative of a dead, dying or diseased colony. Check at the first opportunity. If a colony has died, close the hive entrance until the cause of death can be ascertained. As a precaution, even if there is no obvious sign of disease, burn rather than re-use the comb and sterilise the hive with a blowlamp before re-use. If you need a second opinion, please give me a call.

Apiary meetings will be held in St. John's Copse at 2.30 pm on the first Sunday of each month from April until September, weather permitting. If the weather is doubtful, please give Peter a call beforehand to find out if the meeting is 'on'. Nigel has kindly agreed to organise a barbecue in The Walled Garden following an apiary meeting, provisionally in August. It will be open to all members and their families and friends. It would be nice to resurrect the tradition of holding apiary meetings in members' apiaries. If anyone is willing to host a meeting, please let me know.

I wish you all a happy and bountiful beekeeping year.

David Purchase -- 5th March 2002

The Beekeeping Course

We had a slightly faltering start as there were only four applicants on our planned start day and we all thought that was too few to justify the not inconsiderable time and effort. So we cancelled the course, which of course meant that we immediately got some more enquiries and resurected it the following week. C'est la vie.

So, one week later than scheduled we're up and running on Basingstoke's first do-it-ourselves beekeeping course for quite a few years.

We are following ther BBKA recommendations at present, but I know we all have a few reservations about whether they always cover the right things and at the right times -- The bee dance in session one? Maybe not. And no Langstroth Jumbo or 14x12 amongst the hive types? That'll never do.

It is quite interesting for Chris, Dave and I as tutors to think through our own views and understandings, and put them over to other people.

I have certainly learned one or two things along the way and I'm sure the others have, too.

The Study Centre is working well for the purpose, although it's perhaps just as well that we don't have too many people, particularly for the practical stuff. As it is, with six students and three tutors it's cozy but comfortable.

One of the things that's clear from having three tutors who split the subjects up amongst each other is that we sometimes end up repeating things, all be it prhaps from different perspectives. Hopefully that will happen less as we gain experience.

I personally also discovered a problem for me on Why Bees Swarm, because every time I started a reason I wanted to talk immediately about what one can do about that reason -- but that was someone else's subject, so I kept coming to a halt.

We have tried to have a number of practical sessions, but so far have managed fewer than we planned as we do seem to need most of each session to properly cover the theory. Probably that too will improve as we gain experience. So far we've done a little microscope work, and we've assembled, wired and and waxed frames. We were able to look in the observation hive for a while, too, but they were always a little weak and, unfortunately, succumbed.

As I write, we have now completed six of the ten weeks and have already covered quite a lot. By the time you read this, we'll also have finished at least week seven, mostly on queen rearing and one of the most significant subjects along, probably, with swarming (week six) and diseases (week eight).

On the whole I think the course is going quite well and mostly seems to fit together quite nicely as it's presented in the sylabus. We have adapted one or two parts a little to suit the Hampshire area, where it's a little milder than much of the country, in particular regarding hive space needed for the fairly prolific modern strains of bee and crops like oilseed rape.

Just a very few more weeks now until our first apiary meeting and, for some of our students, their first chance to meet the bees on their own ground. Our fingers are crossed for a nice warm spring day instead of the recent, all too familiar horizontal 'downpour'.

Gordon

The Secret Life of Bees

A Book Review by Dave Green

I just finished reading "The Secret Life of Bees" by Charleston writer Sue Monk Kidd, who visited us to get background on keeping bees, which is one theme of the book.

The main themes of the book are the coming of age of an adolescent girl, and the bitter race relations of the time, which is the era of the civil rights marches in the South. It dances around with an old taboo, interracial romance, without coming to a conclusion on this part of the story. Sue is brilliant at creating colorful characters. The mental image of (black) Rosaleen pouring her bottle of tobacco spit on the local rednecks who tried to stop her voter registration is full of humor and pathos. And I related to the spinster beekeeper mentor encouraging Lily (the young girl) that the bees would not hurt her, if she focused on sending them love.

It makes a very interesting story, quite realistic, with a little fantasy thrown in. It will help build empathy for our black brothers and sisters who lived thru this time. I felt just a little unhappy that some threads of the story were left unresolved, but I guess that is more like real life than the imaginary world we'd sometimes prefer.

I'm not sure how a devout Catholic would respond, because the idea of a Black Madonna is another important theme. She almost takes on the aspect of a goddess. She's actually a statue off an old ship's prow, which was found by slaves, and has been passed down to the modern era.

My own perception of the book was colored by my interest in how accurate Sue portrayed the beekeeping. She did surprisingly well, for a non-beekeeper. Obviously she did a lot of preparation for the beekeeping aspects of the story. She had a couple of minor things that were ahead of their time, but all-in-all, she did an excellent job of giving a picture of beekeeping in that era. We felt we had a little stake in the book, because she had come to us for info. Every now and then, something she added popped out at us, as something we had introduced to her, such as the comments on purple honey.

I would recommend the book. Beekeepers and non-beekeepers would enjoy the beekeeping side, I think, for different reasons. And it makes a thoughtful yet entertaining tale for anyone.

Dave Green SC USA

Bees Can't Plan Ahead?

Unlike you and I, bees can't plan ahead; so they won't build comb in March in anticipation of a spring nectar flow.

Robt Mann email@omitted.anti.spam

As [the quote is from a very experienced scientist, he would not misunderstand if I proceded straight to the scientific issue; but non-scientists unused to the simple directness of our subculture seem to think it's rude, so let me begin by saying I am v reluctant to query anything by our senior man who certainly knows vastly more than I do about bees and has contributed more than anyone to this list.

Who has not noticed a hive preparing for a good, or a bad, season? Don't they plan, on various time-scales? It may well be that there's no evidence on the time-scale which Geo specifies - I'm not contradicting him; but what about a month or two?

Our lack of knowledge about how they plan is not the point. Let us not repeat the fallacy whereby lack of any known organ of hearing in the bee led to many decades of irrational denial that the bee has a sense of hearing. We know little or nothing about how bees plan; but, in the spirit of science, I wish to open discussion on the facts, rather than what the mechanism might be (fascinating tho' that speculation may be).

Who thinks that bees plan?

R

Rick Green email@omitted.anti.spam

Bees work all spring and summer to save stores for a yet unseen winter. That is planning. If you say they are only acting instinctively, try to prove that assertion. Unless we can think like a bee any assertion about their intent is idle thinking. We see them save honey for next winter and then form a human conclusion about whether or not this is an example of planning. All is a blind alley.

Rick Green

Bob &Liz email@omitted.anti.spam

I believe bees act on instinct. I might not be able to prove the assertion to you Rick but have proven the instinct theory to myself. Bees do not in my opinion plan on saving honey for the next winter but simply hoard honey when the opportunity arises.

Bob Harrison

Bill Truesdell email@omitted.anti.spam-maine.net

Based on that reasoning, my maple tree plans for winter by shedding its leaves in the fall. And bears plan for winter by gaining weight (so do I).

I do not have to think like them to observe and know that they are conditioned (instinct) to do so. Any that do not are weeded out with little mercy by nature. Same with bees. Those that build up winter stores survive. Those who do not do not. No planning required.

If bees plan for winter then why do some races of bees plan ahead by not absconding and others, like AHB Africanised Honey Bee, go into the cold with small colonies and few stores? Obviously the northern bee is smarter or uses PERT/CPM Management Planning Tools (which dates me).

As far as proving the assertion that they are acting instinctively - since different races act differently would lead more to instinct than intelligent planning. A classic example of bees not thinking is in the layout of the brood nest. For a long time it was thought that they had the brood in the center, then pollen and then honey because it was planned that way. However, when a computer simulation was run, it came out with the same brood/pollen/honey pattern if the bees randomly put each into any cell on the comb. In time, it develops that way, not because the bees plan it.

There is nothing wrong with instinct. It has kept all of us alive for a long time. But to deny it and substitute intelligence is poor science and can lead to a host of incorrect assumptions.

Bill Truesdell; Bath, Me

Rick Green email@omitted.anti.spam

Planning is a human cogitative process. To assert that bees plan or do not plan and are simply instinctual animals are both examples of idle thinking. Unless you can think like a bee all discussions about planning on the part of a honeybee is anthropomorphic. If anyone gains comfort or practical value from believing bees are instinctual or in fact plan their behavior then good for them but it takes us no closer to understanding the mental processes of the bees.

Rick Green

Robt Mann email@omitted.anti.spam

By coincidence, a respected NZ beekeeper posted the following on our Nat'l Beek Assoc list just after I raised the q on Bee-L:

I have an observation , accurate I hope, some others out there may have a comment on.

Recently I have moved a lot of very hungry hives off bush sites on the Otago coast after a mostly failed attempt to get some Manuka honey. Just too much cool and damp easterly weather when it mattered.

I have moved them inland where at higher altitudes there is still some fields of good clover left. Existing hives in the area have made a fair crop considering the season, but they have now effectually stopped. Getting a few boxes of cut comb finished looks unlikely and they are robbing soon as I am in the yard.( And unusually agressive too.)

However, and here is the point, the very hungry hives, now in just brood chambers, have really very quickly pulled in their winter stores. ( I'd say on average about 10+ kg in two weeks). Same pastures and weather, but apparently much more "desperate" to be anthropomorphic, to collect honey. This is not very scientific, nothing weighed for example, but certainly seems to be happening.

I know from past experience if I were to harvest all the honey off the established colonies now and put a freshly extracted sticky on, then they would be more likely to work the tail end of the season and maybe even make me another box. I understand this is a result of chemicals released from the wet?

So do bees actually "decide" how hard they will go out and gather on the basis of how much stores they have? Do they "know" how much honey they have stored for winter? How? Is there a chemical stimulus involved ? Or am I just fooled here and the other hives have put their 10 kg in the brood nest too? All theories welcome.

Rick Green email@omitted.anti.spam

The "scientific mind" adjusts to too many variables by forming a hypothesis of the stimulus-response kind. Once a stimulus is found linking a "wet hive condition" to "rapidly building winter stores", the scientific mind stops the search for other explanations. The human is then satisfied that further evidence has been found for his original hypothesis of another S-R pairing and a solution to his original question has been found. A bridge to understanding what bees could be thinking can not be constructed with such a model.

Rick Green

Peter Borst email@omitted.anti.spam

I believe that honey bees will gather honey just as long as it is available. Whether they put it in the supers or the brood nest has to do with a variety of factors. Things that favor putting the honey in the supers include: heavy honey flow, strong colony, no queen excluders, etc. Things that favor honey ending up in the brood nest include: slow honey flow, weak colony, queen excluders, and the shortening of days. But I do not think they will stop gathering honey when "they have enough".

If they run out of room, they may stop because the foragers have no where to put the nectar. If this condition goes on for a while, they will fill the brood nest with honey and even build comb outside.

Now none of this takes place with pollen. It has been discovered that a colony of bees will stop gathering pollen when their stores of it reach a particular critical mass. (Water is also gathered on an as needed basis.) But how does an individual bee know that there is enough pollen? This remains to be discovered but it does not appear that a pollen forager does a complete inventory of all the pollen cells (this would be very time consuming).

Are there pollen monitors that keep track of the stores and communicate this info to the foragers? Don't know. One theory that has been advanced is that a returning forager is given a sample of the larval food and she could tell by the taste if it is rich enough. If it lacks pollen, she would know she has to go back out for more.

This is one of the things that researchers like Tom Seeley study. This may have no practical benefit to the beekeeping world, but in this way our understanding of bee biology is increased.

PB

Consciousness

Following On From "Bees can't plan?"

Peter Borst email@omitted.anti.spam

Any discussion of animal consciousness will quickly polarize into two distinct groups. The first believes that human beings possess consciousness and animals either do not, or if they do, it cannot be satisfactorily proved that they do. Animal awareness is viewed as a sort of black box, and any description of what animals might be thinking or feeling is dismissed as "anthropomorphism".

The other group believes that there is no reason not to suppose that consciousness or awareness of some sort is present in any organisms that possess central nervous systems. Naturally, a dog will have a different experience of the world than a person, and so will a honey bee. But these three creatures have in common (among many things) the awareness of light, time, and they possess memory and the ability to successfully navigate in the environment.

But finally, the question of consciousness in animals turns back to: what is consciousness in people? -- and most of the same problems we have with animal awareness are here, as well. One cannot know in any real sense, the consciousness of another person and we must rely on observation (as well as their reports) to form of a picture of what it is like to be them.

I only say all this because I think this a very interesting topic but one which has several pitfalls. One is the problem that no one yet agrees what consciousness is, even in us, and another is that very little about it can really be proved in the classical sense.

Robert Griffin:

Contrary to the widespread pessimistic opinion that the content of animal thinking is hopelessly inaccessible to scientific inquiry, the communicative signals used by many animals provide empirical data on the basis of which much can reasonably be inferred about their subjective mental experiences. Because mentality is one of the most important capabilities that distinguishes living animals from the rest of the known universe, seeking to understand animal minds is even more exciting and significant than elaborating our picture of inclusive fitness or discovering new molecular mechanisms. Cognitive ethology presents us with one of the supreme scientific challenges of our times, and it calls for our best efforts of critical and imaginative investigation.

David Chalmers:

Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. Many have tried to explain it, but the explanations always seem to fall short of the target. Some have been led to suppose that the problem is intractable, and that no good explanation can be given.

Peter Borst email@omitted.anti.spam

Bill Truesdell email@omitted.anti.spam-maine.net

There have been some excellent writing about consciousness, especially as they relate to computers and artificial intelligence. Which is one reason why the issue is difficult to define, because once you define it you open up a pandora's box of ethical problems.

But our discussion is with bees and planning. I have no problem with instinct as the driving force.

Another word is behavior when we apply it to humans, but it is instinct. We have it mapped in our genes just like the honeybee, but we also have conciseness, which allows us to override that instinct.

Bill Truesdell; Bath, Me

Bill Truesdell email@omitted.anti.spam-maine.net

Well, it appears that Morristown, NJ has determined what is a sentient being.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/news/ 02/02/27/news10-ANIMALS.htm

Interesting article. The whole thing is being pushed by Vegans. They are also in the middle of doing away with beekeeping since beekeepers are cruel to bees.

Question - which only needs a few answers but has troubled me. Are there many on the list who do not have internet access so cannot go to the link and read the articles? Reason for asking is that it is easy to put in a link rather than saying what is in the article, but if you cannot access it, then I will paraphrase and add the link.

Bill Truesdell; Bath, Me

Donald Franson email@omitted.anti.spam

If they want to do away with beekeeping and they rely on crops what will happen to the crops when all the bees are gone?

Don

Salvaging Wax and Honey

Some postings from bee-l

Allen Dick email@omitted.anti.spam

Having had several very interesting discussions with a lot of good input from many sources -- and some surprising answers -- I am going to ask another question to which I think I know some answers, but to which I may not know all I need to know:

What is the best way to melt broken frames -- other than a solar melter? Is it in a steam cabinet, a hot room, or by immersion in near-boiling water? Or is it by some other method? Should a person cut the combs out to melt them or just work with the whole frame? What are the tricks of the business?

1. In the first case, let's assume that the object is to save as much of the wax in as clean a form as possible, but that any honey is going to be lost.
2. In the second, let's assume there is a lot of good honey in the broken frames. How can we best get the honey and wax separated and salvaged with the least damage? (This is where I suspect the solar melter is the number one choice)

I realise that we have discussed some aspects of all this before, so am hoping that we will get some new ideas and reveal some of the more subtle points that make the difference between just doing the job and doing it well.

Allen

Peter John Keating email@omitted.anti.spam

Can l presume that we are talking about broken frames coming in during the harvest? I have a Fager cappings press, and any broken combs with honey are placed on the conveyor, after being cut out from the frame. Although the Fager is not the most efficient means of separating wax and honey, it does it without heat, does not incorporate air into the honey (as do most spinners) and works in a continuous and not in a batch fashion: meaning that at the end of the day the Fager has also finished it's work. They have long been unavailable and secondhand machines hard to find, but there are being made again. For more info go to http://www.herbee.com/page6.htm

Peter

Murray McGregor email@omitted.anti.spam

Thomas in France, make a thing called a "Fondoir" and I believe several other makers have similar devices. It is a jacketed tank with multiple outlets, and, radiant elements in the closeable lid.

This allows you to set the body of the contents to be heated to a certain level, which should be a good melt heat to allow the honey and partly melted wax to seperate, and the extra heat from the top allows all the wax to effectively melt at a higher heat, yet at the same time insulating the honey below from the extremes of temperature above.

I have been thinking of buying one of these things to finish off our wax at the end of the extracting day rather than doing the dry cappings and old combs in the winter. There is little or no honey left in the compressed cappings which come off the wax press (another French device which is brilliant) and you hasve a load of stuff like dog biscuits.

A "Fondoir" can be partly filled with water, the wax debris and pressings tipped into the top, heat set to whatever level you want and let it settle out. You end up with a slum/water slurry in the bottom and wax floating on top. Each layer can be run off seperately.

Murray

Peter Dillon email@omitted.anti.spam-internet.fr

Murray mentioned the wax/honey "Fondoir" from Thomas here in France.

I have been using this piece of apparatus over several years as a central part of my extracting process.

Effectively, it works in the following manner:

A chain decapping machine sits over the end, frames introduced and uncapped. The shredded cappings and included honey fall into the container - holding 100 Kg honey/wax mix (the container has a sloping floor to allow material to move to the opposite end) As the material moves, it is gently heated, allowing separation of the honey and wax. The heat is supplied via. the electrically heated oil bath( food grade oil).

Once the wax rises to the surface, this is melted by 3 radiant heaters fixed in the insulated lid - thermostatically controlled. The wax flows out through a spout at the appropriate level - allowing continuous melting.

The warmed honey passes under a buffer plate and cleaned of wax, flows into a container exterior to the melter, from which it is pumped to a final storage container.

The rate of extraction determines the supply of heat required.

Having had my honeys analysed by all types of buyer, there has never been a problem of overheated honey as indicated by HMF or enzyme levels.

It is quite an expensive piece of equipment - but extremely reliable and cost effective.

No mess, clean wax and honey, all finished at the end of the day. Somebody in the States/Canada or elsewhere should make them!!! Esp. with small hive beetle around, as there is no damp cappings being held in storage.

Honey frames are removed from the decapping machine in the traditional manner for extraction.

Peter

P-O Gustafsson email@omitted.anti.spam

A similar system has been developed here by beekeepers themselves when there was no well working machine to buy at reasonable cost. It's the same container as you describe with double bottoms with electric heater in water. We don't use oils as we don't need above 100 C. During extracting the heat is set to make honey run off but not melt wax. At the end of the day, the temp is raised and wax is melted and run out the same way. It's simple and reasonably cheap to make. A drawback with those systems are that they will heat up the extracting room making it into a sauna. This will work up to around 1000 kg per day, only for the smaller operator. Most important is to avoid dark combs in the honey supers. Pollen and coocons will insulate and prevent melting.

P-O Gustafsson, Sweden http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/

Allen Dick email@omitted.anti.spam

Thanks, I appreciate the ideas coming in. and hope my comments here won't discourage additional suggestions, but I think I have tried the type of unit described and found it has serious drawbacks for what I have in mind. I offer my experience so that anyone who has mastered the unit and has insights that have escaped me can set me straight.

Maybe the units you describe are different, but if they are the same as a Kelley Melter -- a coffin shaped thing with a hinged lid and radiant heaters in it -- I've had several of these in various sizes over the years and sold all of them.

Although they do make good wax, and will not damage honey much when doing fresh cappings -- if properly operated and as long as all the cappings going in are white -- they require constant attention, are a fire hazard (especially if accidentally misadjusted) and smoke a lot if there are any cocoons or debris in the wax, which would definitely be the case when melting dark combs.

Moreover, in my experience at least, they require a long warm-up period each morning and constant fiddling during the day. There used to be one in almost every sizeable Alberta honey house, but I know of no one using one daily during extracting and of very few using them to render after the season.

I am sure that with today's technology, such melters could be made to work much better and even be safe to use, but as long as there are cocoons and/or bees and other debris in the wax, I suspect they will always smoke and smell.

I hate to sound so negative, but in my experience and for my type of operation, I have found that -- with the lid removed -- that they make an excellent extractor sump, but would be a nightmare for melting the 5,000+ old dark frames I want to render.

Maybe someone else has had better experience with them?

Allen

Murray McGregor email@omitted.anti.spam

They are indeed broadly similar to the device you mention, and even the Thomas manager who visited us last autumn to see how his new extractor was working described them as obsolescent, but still sell readily. In their range they consider them to have been largely replaced by a machine called a 'Spinomel' which does not aeriate the honey. Not everyone wants a spinner though, no matter how gentle and effective.

The link below contains a simple picture of the wax press we use to seperate everything without heat, and it even crushes down old combs etc, squeezing almost everything out. Wire, metal, little bits of wood, everything is crushed together and comes out just like dog biscuits. The machine even works on crystallised old honey in combs, but this stuff may need you to put the output at the wax end through again. It leaves a lot of tiny brash in the honey which you can then melt and skim.

http://www.apiservices.com/ limousin-apiculture/index.htm

I'll see if I can take some photos of it in operation next season and post them up for folk to see. Another relatively expensive option at around USD 8/9 K. The more wax and chunks there is in the input mix the better, if mainly honey the machine can cavitate, and thus if the input is pulped honey and cappings there can from time to time be a slight problem. If there is you just through a heap of the wax from the output end back in at the start to give it something solid to work on.

Unfortunately with regard to your original question it does not render wax and you still have all this stuff to deal with although with the honey now salvaged.

Murray

P-O Gustafsson email@omitted.anti.spam

I have only seen one system that looked efficient for 5,000+ frames. It was a special built machine, a large radial extractor where the frames were spun over a boiling water bath. Steam is probably the best way to get it done. But there is no easy way of cleaning old dark frames. And not much vax is returned. Wires are often damaged and need to be replaced or stretched. I have found the labour cost can be too high, and that it's actually cheaper to burn some of them and buy new.

P-O Gustafsson, Sweden

Robert Butcher email@omitted.anti.spam

You cut out all the good comb honey and cook it down in a double boiler -- low flame to start with. Bring the temp up slowly and you won't burn the honey. The wax will rise and the honey will fall.

Tim Arheit email@omitted.anti.spam

Our method is to simply dump the wax cappings and broken comb into boiling water. Stir the mixture as it melts. Once it melts we take it off the heat source and let it sit until the wax sets up in one big chunk floating on top. It's still pretty dirty at this point and there generally is a good amount of lighter debris stuck to the bottom that can be scraped off. The honey of course stays dissolved in the water. (Generally you should have several times the amount of water as wax and honey).

Then we melt the wax in a double boiler (one stock pot inside another one). Once melted we pour the hot wax though a strainer cloth (the same type you strain the honey with) and into molds, bread pans, etc. You'll have a fair amount of slum-gum and other debris, and obviously you don't get 100% of the wax out, but we do get most of it, and the end product looks good.

-Tim

Donald Aitken email@omitted.anti.spam

I don't think you will get saleable honey from rendered old combs. It is very dark and has poor flavour. You may be able to use a variant of my method for separating wax from cappings.

The cappings are put in a barrel with an equal weight of warm water. I have a 1/3 hp electric motor with a 5/8" shaft extension and a 6" diameter propeller made from twisted 16 gauge stainless steel. I run this for about twenty minutes and then pump the honey/water mix out through a bag filter which retains the cappings. I feed the honey water back to the bees and they evaporate it back to honey. The wax is rendered separate from the honey. This yields bright yellow wax and quite clear honey/water.

You would have to find some way to demolish your combs so that the water could get at the honey. (I use a scratcher to uncap, so my cappings are small grains to start with). You could warm them up in steam chest to about 110 deg F, bang the frame on a board over the barrel and then mince them up with the propeller mixer.

The barrel would take about 150 lb of comb at a time so a steam chest that would do three supers at a time would be adequate. This stuff would be better fed back in the spring as it would make fairly poor honey. It is necessary that it be fed immediately after processing or it ferments. ( You might use it for making ethanol...)

This method would realistically do 100 lb an hour. If you have 5,000 pounds you are looking at a couple of months. Feeding back that much honey would be a problem. The ethanol idea sounds better.

Donald Aitken

Dee Lusby email@omitted.anti.spam

I am finding this discussion of salvaging wax and honey very good. However, I do have a question I hope someone can help me with.

I now what pretty wax is to look at. I also know that many beekeepers consider the lighter the color the wax when processed, the cleaner it is.

But is this so, and is this true?

Is pretty yellow and whiter wax really clean or just pretty. Could it be that residue wax is really cleaner, though darker looking at times?

How would one rate clean as chemical or residue clean vs clean by nice looks? and How should the difference be rated for marketing?

How does one salvage clean wax then that is pretty and residue clean also? Is anyone doing this?

How is Apistan and Coumaphous gotten out, or anything else for that matter? What are some of you doing for this problem or aren't you?

Just curious.

Dee A. Lusby

Kevin Gibbs email@omitted.anti.spam

If you have access to a steam make a steam chest from three 44 gal (200 litre) drums laying on their side. I will describe one I have seen. The wax is left in good condition but of course any honey is lost.

Cut the tops and two of the bottoms from three 44 gal (200 litre) drums. Weld them together end to end to form a long pipe with one end blocked. Whack a crowbar through the end left on near the top to let a bit of steam go.

Make a hinged door for the other end out of one of the tops removed. A gap is left at the bottom of the door to let melted wax drain into a mould.

Weld some legs on so the hinged end is lower than the blocked end to allow the melted wax to run. Make a rack the length of the three drums to slip inside the three drums that will hold the frames. Any design will do for the rack. It just makes it easier to load / unload. Grating (old excluders) to catch most of the old pollen and cocoons on the bottom of the rack helps cleaning and draining. Make a hole in the door end to put a steam pipe in. Just a hole big enough to slide the pipe in a little does the trick.

Load it with old brood frames etc. stuff the steam hose in and turn it on. In 10-15 minutes when the wax stops running turn the steam off. Beware of steam burns and touching the side of the drums. The frames are best scraped as soon as they are cool enough to work with if they are to be reused.

As you may realise this type of steam chest will not be suitable for a lot of locations as bees are attracted to it. But it can handle a lot of frames easily and the quality of the wax is very good as it is drained immediately. If outside better used when the bees are not flying.

I have seen a bank of three of these steam chests that are used in rotation for large jobs, one cooling, one loading, one steaming.

I have even used one removable topped drum on end, sat on concrete building blocks with a crowbar hole in the bottom for a wax drain and a crowbar hole through the lid for the steam hose. Put one excluder inside a few inches from the bottom and thrown in as many frames as would fit. A little condensation runs out the bottom with the wax so allow for this by having a larger mould or several moulds on hand to swap mid job.

Kevin Gibbs; New Zealand

Peter Dillon email@omitted.anti.spam-internet.fr

P-O Gustafsson commenting on the Thomas "Fondoir" mentioned that whilst having a similar piece of apparatus, the double skinned heating container did not use oil as a temperature of more than 100C was not needed.

From my experience, an oil temperature of 85C is sufficient to cause separation of wax and honey - with the mix reaching around 45C.

Also, using oil, there is no problem with water vapour drifting around the honey house. Oil also reduces problems of liquid expansion.

Comments relating to debris from comb:

It must be realised that this "Fondoir" is designed for honey/wax separation during comb honey extraction. The amount of debris is minimal, and that which does occur is easily removed with a fine sieve like spoon. I agree, melting down old wax from frames would not be sensible.

Since the apparatus was never designed for such use, any resulting claim against fire/damage would not be covered by building insurance.

Sure, spinners remove honey from wax in a clean way, but one is left with the wax to deal with. Also, on the Canola crop, when the honey is starting to crystallize, as it often does under certain flow conditions, this is removed from the wax efficiently.

As for start up time - one removes most of the honey at the end of the extracting period, then the oil is left to run at a temperature of 40C.

Heat loss is minimal due to the insulation.

Agreed, it is not perfect, but what is?

Would be interesting to see how it would run with slabs of uncapped material rather than the hash that results from the chain flail uncapper!

Peter

Recipe

Pineapple, Honey and Mint Fresh Chutney

Makes about 3/4 litre.

Deseed and finely dice the red pepper.

Peel and chop the fruit; peel and finely chop the onions; finely chop the mint.

Combine the wine and vinegar in a saucepan and boil for three minutes. Stir in the all of the ingredients except the mint. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 30 minues, stirring occasionally.

Strain all the ingredients through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing down on the fruit to extract the liquid. Remove and discard the clove and peppercorns, then set the fruit mixture aside.

Return the strained juice to the saucepan and reduce to two thirds. Pour the reduction over the fruit mixture, stir in the mint and let the chutney stand for six to eight hours before serving.

Carrot and Almond Chutney

Makes about 2kg.

Zest and juice the lemons.

Shred the carrots into long strands; peel the ginger, cut half into matchsticks and finely grate the remainder.

Cover the carrots, ginger, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, coriander and chilli with the vinegar and leave to marinate overnight.

Tranfer the marinated ingredients and the juices to a preserving pan and add 300ml water. Bring to a boil and simmer for twenty minutes, then add the honey and sugar, stirring until it disolves.

Bring back to the boil for around 25 minutes or until the mixture is thick. Gently toast the almonds and stir them into the mixture, then simmer for a further four or five minutes of cooking time.

Spoon into hot preserving jars and seal immediately. The chutney can be eaten at once, but improves with a little age.

If you like your chutneys very spicy, increase the amount of chilli in the recipe.

Diary

Unless otherwise stated, evening meetings are at 7:30pm in our Study Centre, The Walled Garden, Down Grange, Basingstoke and apiary meetings are 2:30pm at St. John's Copse, Oakley.

21 March

In the Study Centre. Dennis Smith from Soton on Mead Making

7 April

Apiary Meeting

18 April

In the Study Centre. Andy Philips on Orchids.

27 April

In the Study Centre. Stoneleigh

4 May

Meon Valley Auction

5 May

Apiary Meeting

26 May

St. John's Copse open day (10..4) volunteers?

2 June

Apiary Meeting

7 July

Apiary Meeting

21 July

Flower show at walled garden -- all day?

3 August

Monk Sherborne Horticultural Societies 50th Aniversary Horticultural Show; 2pm.

4 August

Apiary Meeting

1 September

Apiary Meeting

19 September

In the Study Centre. Brian Spicer -- History of Hackwood Estate.

17 October

In the Study Centre. Sarah Dailey -- Gardening for wildlife.

20 October

Nature's Harvest -- all day + Honeyshow

21 November

In the Study Centre. John Hamer -- Another aproach to urban beekeeping.

19 December

In the Study Centre. Bring and Buy with mince pies.

Committee

In the Study Centre. Wednesdays 6 February, 3 April, 2 October, 4 December.