BBKA Forum

Are you using wire and a press Mick? I had a look online for one but couldn't find. Wondering where I could get one.

Japey Edge wrote: ↑

20 Jul 2019, 07:59

Are you using wire and a press Mick? I had a look online for one but couldn't find. Wondering where I could get one.

I've seen one on eBay but the chances of getting a second mortgage precluded bidding....

Just having a quick eBay look, silicone sheets are £145 and a roller is £380 ish. not as expensive as I thought tbh.

Everyone gets obsessed with embossing ...Miller in his classic book "50 years amongst bees" used IIRC flat sheets of wax and let the bees get on with it. If it worked then it will work now.

For me...life is too short to roll my own...a trip to Thornes and a wax exchange usually does the trick.
Also for me ...as I do a lot of cut comb...I only use the thin unwired foundation in supers...it's also cheaper and you cannot get your home made sheet of wax foundation that thin....Home made sheets are also brittle as they don't get the candling (rolling and pressing) that the professionals outfits use.

My advice is concentrate on honey production =money in bank= buy foundation=more time to sit and enjoy that glass of wine/G&T etc.

Wonder if a 3D printed mould or roller would be cost-effective... Hmm

Just thinking, the blank sheets would mean the bees could draw whatever size comb they like wouldn't it? As in, they could draw drone comb?

They will draw drone sized comb on worker cell foundation anyway, particularly early in the year.....as you will find every spring. The time to get all worker sized cells is later in the season when notions of reproduction are no longer influencing them.

Like Nigel I only use unwired.thin super foundation. It means that all the best capped combs for cut comb are automatically on the right foundation. Simples.

As long as you get it to the wax conversion (not straight swap) place on the way to something else or at a show, a 10lb lump of wax and £15 gets you 200 sheets back - which themselves weigh pretty much 10lb in wax. That’s a whole stack of supers to re-wax.

I certainly do DIY and it’s not always about any cost saving but... it’s just not worth tooling up to do at my current or likely scale.

But all credit if it’s your bag.

Not actually making it yet but just for the hell of it and for something different over the winter I'm going to knock up a horizontal top bar hive.

I've bought some empty poly nucs and I'll be painting em tomorrow. Also will be making frames up for em to.