Beekeeping, bee gardens, bee research, bee pictures, and honey appreciation.
Ordered silicone cast form, bought a crockpot (worked 10x better than i hoped it would for melting) and starting casting my own wax bases. Pretty satisfied with them. Yes, I know they are not rectangular ....but i did not want the form to overflow or the sheets become too thick. I need to cut them a bit anyway and Like all beekeeper mistakes : the bees will fix it.
This is really cool! I’m still using the plastic foundation. How are you attaching these?
Thank you! There is a steel wire in the frame. You lay the wax on it and then connect a power source (I use an old car battery) to both ends. The wire gets warm and when the waxplate starts to sinks into the wire you let go of the power. The wire cools instantly and the wax is mounted. The wire also adds to strength when you place them in a 2,3 or 4 frame honey centrifuge.
That seems very nice. My dad used to just lay it on the wires of the frame and use candle for dripping wax above the wire to fix it in place.
I just shove wires into wax with some two-pronged hard implement (to push on the sides of cell ridge).
I've also tried using woodburning iron to melt a few spots of wax to the frame, it worked amazing (and cutting pretty honeycomb from the frame was never easier), but with one catch: if wether is hot and bees are slacking, it deforms faster then they reinforce it and wax rolls off. These frames survived my centrifuge too, the trick is to make syre bees attach it on all sides by, well, tack-soldering on all sides indeed. Will not work with op's casts and centrifuge though.
Was thinking for a year that casting flat wax and then rolling it with patterned roll press might be better idea. Anyone tried that?
I considered rolling but wondered if it would not stick to the roller easily. Then again, it's not uncommon. This just seemed easier and more affordable. Buying Form + cooker was less than €60:-