# Hot Dipping Tank design



## ginn68

I have been kicking around the same idea. I am torn between hot wax/rosin or something in a honey oil stain.


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## JohnBeeMan

I am expecting to add some recylced beeswax. I have even thought thought that I may end up adding boiled linseed oil if needed to bring up level. Boiled linseed oil has drying agents where as raw linseed oil tends to remain tacky.

I remember old folks talking about finish for yellow pine flooring being a boiling mix of linseed oil and beeswax.


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## Michael Bush

A drain would be nice. I kind of wish I had one on mine. It needs to be able to withstand the heat and not melt, even if the heat gets higher than it should. A melted valve and liquid leaking would only add to your problems if you ever got it too hot...


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## Kingfisher Apiaries

Is your tank going to be a double boiler design? I have a big vat that's 1/8 inch plate...can I just put a burner under it? Does it need to be a double boiler design?
Mike


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## Michael Bush

You need to get it up to 250 F or so. A double boiler would only work if it was under a moderate amount of pressure. I think I would like that. Even better have a steam generator separate.


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## Kingfisher Apiaries

Will the wax burn if it has direct heat with just a vat? I.e. propane burner hitting a vat?
mike


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## Michael Bush

It will discolor from direct heat. If you could limit the heat it would not discolor nearly so much. I don't know if it hurts it from the point of view of coating boxes...


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## acbz

I think Keith Jarret uses a double walled tank with a scrap wood fire below. I used a steel drum with electric band heaters.
There are plenty of people using both fire and electric heating means with single wall tanks. As long as you stir the wax every so often, I don't think overheating should be a problem. Keep a close eye on the temps w/ a digital thermocouple thermometer. I'd keep it below 300 F. Don't do it indoors and keep fire extinguishers handy.


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## Kingfisher Apiaries

Thanks...dipped boxes look ugly in a few years anyways...if the wax gets discolored big deal.
Mike


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## Adrian Quiney WI

From what I see it seems to take an awful of material to fill up the tank. I envisage it would save on the initial cost of material if something inert was occupying the space that did not contact the sides of the box as it was dipped. Perhaps a boulder or two would do the trick. I haven't seen this idea incorporated in the youtube videos I've seen - so perhaps there is some elemental flaw in this idea.


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## slickbrightspear

I thought the same thing adrain what i was going to do was have them weld a box inside that was small enough that a super would fit over it so you would only have to have enough wax and rosin to fill the outer box you could put rocks or fire brick into that inner box to hold heat.


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## Solomon Parker

I've been watching this thread with interest. I'm content with painting for now, but I do have such a 'vat'. It's a stainless steel box, I do not know the exact dimensions, but it's about 18" wide (perfect for hanging frames in) 30" long and maybe 20" deep. I use it for melting wax from frames. Just heat up about 20 gallons of water, then stick in a frame and swish it around.

However, it could be used for dipping boxes, I think two mediums or one deep at a time. I use solid cinder blocks to weigh my hive tops down and if you stacked a few of those inside your vat sufficient to take up the space inside a hive box, you could save a significant amount of wax and rosin.

Anyone have a bead on a price for 20-30 gallons of paraffin?


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## Beagler

The saving space sounds good now but the wax and rosin is a one time purchase. Where this limits you at is I dip bottoms and migratory covers 10 at a time. My cooker is big enough to do two deeps at once. Compared to painting every 7 1/2 minutes I have a hive body ready for service. I do not miss painting three days if weather permitted.


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## Solomon Parker

As far as valves go, a good brass ball valve with Teflon seals will withstand sweating, so surely it will withstand 250 degrees. You might want to put a little extra pipe on it to get it further from the flames just for ease of use.


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## Solomon Parker

Also, what grade should be used? http://igiwax.com/industries-applications/paraffin-wax/


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## David LaFerney

You might consider just having the fabricator weld in a pipe threaded fitting that you can usually just keep capped (or plugged) and then screw in a boiler drain valve on the occasion that you want to empty the tank. That would save wear and tear on the valve, and it wouldn't be sticking out there during normal use.


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## Mr. C

I'm in the process of setting my tank up to dip this Spring. I would put in an very strong word of caution on setting up your tank. You want a good amount of clearance room in case you get a wet piece of wood or a splash of water which will cause boil over. I'm also leary of a valve in the bottom, though it would be a nice addition. A fine steel mesh screen on a metal pole might do the trick though like a pool cleaner. If you happen to be using an open flame you have 200-500 pounds of nice hydrocarbon fuel on hand.

I don't have pics yet because I haven't set it up and I probably went overkill but my tank is 22" X 26" and 36" deep. The bottom is quarter inch steel and the sides eighth inch. I also made a telescoping cover for it out 16th inch steel and an oversized splash guard for underneath. (Once filled it will easily cook 3 deeps at once and be able to accomadate any bottom boards, telescoping covers etc I have). I made it extra tall because I'm paranoid and the handle on the lid will fit a 2x4 under it so if for some reason the thing lit up I can put the cover on to snuff it from a safe distance. I'm surrounding my burner with brick to hold in heat and covering the brick with my splash guard so anything that drips/splashes/boils out won't be able to hit the flames. Then I'll probably brick around the upper part of the tank to hold in heat.

Resources that I found helpful when looking around are below.

http://www.queenrightcolonies.com/uploads/HotWaxDippingofBeehives.pdf
The PDF gives a lot of great info and pics from a study in New Zeeland or Australia on using it to sterilize and preserve.

Parafin Wax (If you decide to fo that route)
http://www.candlewic.com/store/Product.aspx?q=c49,p1075&title=Paraffin-Wax-140
Best price I could find anywhere

Gum Rosin
http://www.jhcalo.com/
Only place I could find that would sell it by the bag at a reasonable price, you do need a UPS shipping number and credit card to order, but they were very helpful.


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## Keith Jarrett

Kingfisher Apiaries said:


> dipped boxes look ugly in a few years anyways...


Only if you don't paint them.


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## Kingfisher Apiaries

Well whats the point them? I mean if I am going to paint them anyways why dip? A good dipping setup and wax runs $500+! I can by a powerpainter and a bunch of barn paint for that!
Mike


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## Keith Jarrett

Kingfisher Apiaries said:


> I mean if I am going to paint them anyways why dip? A good dipping setup and wax runs $500+!


When you dip & paint, the box will last & look nice for forty years. As far as the set up maybe 100 bucks to get set up, wax is about $.30lb so it will take a whooping $.25 a box in wax.

Mike, better buy lots of that barn paint... you will need it in a couple years.


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## Fusion_power

The best dipping tank I've seen was in an old Gleanings issue about 1980ish from a guy in Australia. He had a welded vat similar to a cane syrup cooking pan with a slide extension on each end. He stood at one end and pushed a deep brood chamber in and it pushed the next 5 in a line further in until one popped out the other end. From that point forward he would feed in a new box every minute and someone on the other end would unload the one that popped out. This was obviously a high volume way of handling wax dipping. He was doing several hundred boxes in a day.

DarJones


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## acbz

Keith Jarrett said:


> wax is about $.30lb


Only place I could imagine getting that low of a price would be purchasing wax remnants from a candle factory (which I have done). The only problem is that the added perfumes and colors causes the wax to foam and froth up a lot more than virgin paraffin...hello boil-overs...I'll pay a bit extra to use virgin paraffin next time...I have been told that the higher melting point blends are superior for our purposes, although I'm not exactly sure why.


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## Michael Bush

I've never seen a cane syrup cooking pan, but that sounds like a great design. I was wanting to setup to do a lot of boxes and that sounds like the setup. So what does the middle of this thing actually look like? Solid on the top? perforated on the top?


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## Keith Jarrett

acbz said:


> purchasing wax remnants from a candle factory (which I have done). The only problem is that the added perfumes and colors causes the wax to foam and froth up a lot more .


ACBZ, very well said. But when you build your tank make sure you have five-six inches of extra room at top, this is how we know when the boxes are done. We don't use the temp as the main guide, we use the foam rate. We also have a spill way built right into the top of the tank so never worry about over flow problems.


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## ginn68

Are the boxes sticky after the dipping process? In the Georgia heat I didn't know if the wax would melt and get sticky?


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## rainesridgefarm

Not to change topics but so far I have only heard of dipping in linseed oil, parafin wax and rosin. Does anyone use canola oil or other vegi oils to dip in? I just got a free drum of canola oil from a food plant that said they changed formulas and do not need it anymore. p


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## JohnBeeMan

I would be concerned with canola oil drying quality. Linseed oil has drying agents. I suppose you could try diferent mix ratios with rosin to find the combinations new melting point.

Another advantage to hot dipping over just painting is that hot dipping for 10 minutes is one of few ways to kill AFB spores. My biggiest reason for doing the setup is due to some of my equipment coming from various sources and some is over 30 years old. So hot dipping it will give peice of mind as well as make sure it last the rest of my lifetime.

I do like the idea of a threaded fitting with a cap as a drain point.


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## Michael Bush

>Does anyone use canola oil or other vegi oils to dip in?

Dee Lusby says they tried frying them in peanut oil. Said it didn't work any better than paint and was a lot more work. I think it would all evaporate or break down eventually.


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## Kingfisher Apiaries

Keith Jarrett said:


> When you dip & paint, the box will last & look nice for forty years. As far as the set up maybe 100 bucks to get set up, wax is about $.30lb so it will take a whooping $.25 a box in wax.
> 
> Mike, better buy lots of that barn paint... you will need it in a couple years.


Good luck finding wax at that price. We did run the numbers...I am not making and assumption. I need to get my heat source and do some fab work still. 
Ya Ya Ya Ya. Its cheap and sticks to old paint good! :lpf:


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## Keith Jarrett

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s35/CNHoney/waxtank002.jpg

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s35/CNHoney/waxtank001.jpg

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s35/CNHoney/waxtank003.jpg

Here are some pics of the tank I built for boxes, it has a door at the bottom for fuel for the fire, a drain plug at bottom, a jacketed wall that the heat goes around then out the chimney, it has a spill way built in for safty, has a drain table that you set the boxes on to drip back into the tank. Hope it all makes cents, I mean sence.


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## forgeblast

What about looking for a used maple syrup evaporator, 
http://www.leaderevaporator.com/
shows some ideas, you may be able to find some used ones.


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## TWall

I'm not sure a Maple syrup evaporator would be deep enough. The ones I have seen have been more wide and shallow to increase surface area to heat and evaporate.

Tom


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## Fusion_power

I'll do my best to describe the dipping tank that I saw in the old Gleanings issue. This is from memory so might be better to go digging through gleanings articles. I think it was sometime between 1977 and 1981.

There was a single sheet of metal about 10 feet long by about 2 feet wide for the bottom of the pan. The side panels were cut as long rectangles about 9 feet long by about 2 feet wide. The bottom of the pan was then curved in such a way that there was a flat place on the end, then gradually curved down until the middle of the tank was just over a foot deep. Then it curved back up and formed another flat area just over the width of a deep brood chamber.

The way it worked was to set a deep brood chamber on one end and push it into the pan, then add another deep and keep pushing until a box came out the far end. The box that emerged was left on the end long enough to drain excess wax at which point it was removed and stacked to finish cooling.

It was heated with a propane burner the best I recall.

I could build this pretty cheap. Use a turkey cooker with a flame spreader to heat the tank, get the panels cut at a metal place near here, weld and bend and weld some more to form the pan. It would be heavy and should last a long time.

DarJones


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## blueskybeesupply

Excellent Instruction PDF on hot dipping and building a tank from the Australian Government Rural Industries Research and Development Corp.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEgQFjAH&url=https%3A%2F%2Frirdc.infoservices.com.au%2Fdownloads%2F01-051&ei=0zXpTtKYBNSItwfl0rinBg&usg=AFQjCNGVi6mO9bp1wTRslkulXp4ZRyvT8Q

Looked at it many times over the years.


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## tedlemay

Does hot dipping last longer than the stain/penetrating oil, or are they about the same? I guess in short , are any of these a one time treatment?


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## Mtn. Bee

Keith,
Thanks for posting pics!
They also reminded me about the giant homemade wood stove/furnace that I had for 15 years stored in a barn that I could have converted into a tank with some cutting and welding.
I tried to sell it for $35.00 at my yard sale and nobody would buy it because it was huge and very heavy (3/16-1/4" plate), so I sold to the junk man for scrap price! 
It was a double walled stove and would take 30" long pieces of firewood and it made my tractor grunt to pick it up!
Now I am looking to build a tank myself. Live and learn!


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## Michael Bush

>Does hot dipping last longer than the stain/penetrating oil

Yes.

> or are they about the same?

No.

> I guess in short , are any of these a one time treatment? 

I think hot dipping will be. But I only started doing it four or five years ago so we will see...


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## ginn68

What about the hives bodies being sticky? I'm just wandering how the heat interacts with the heart in the south.


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## Keith Jarrett

ginn68 said:


> What about the hives bodies being sticky? I'm just wandering how the heat interacts with the heart in the south.


Ginn, the trick is to get your wax hot 325, I dip & spray paint mine, you would never know they've been dipped.


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## Michael Bush

I think what most people picture is not how it works. When you boil them, the water from the wood steams out. When you pull them out, the wax gets sucked deep into the wood. It's not a "surface" treatment. I've had no problems with them being sticky.


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## Mr. C

I'm kind of curious (got everything ready to run my tank this spring), I personally like the look of the natural wood so really don't intend to paint after dipping. Those of you that paint, I'm told the paint soaks into the wood and lasts better (pulled in like the wax) so two questions I guess.

1) How well does the paint last when you paint them "hot"?

2) Does paint stick after they're cool?


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## G B

Hello Mr. C I have used the wax dipping and painting per keith Jarret. If you paint the lids or boxes while still hot the paint gets sucked in and really does a nice job. Just got 5 more Barrels of wax, dont need that much but price is right.... George B


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## krunch

What kind of paint is used ( oil or latex ) after dipping. How long after dipping is best ( temperature of the wood ). Sounds like this isn't a one man operation --- Dip, Drip, Paint, Stack, and Dry. However, I think I will be out in the barn tomorrow fabricating Fusion Power's explanation of old Gleanings issue dip tank design. Much better than the 55 gal. drum I was going to use. 
Regards to all, and happy holidays 
Krunch


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## krunch

G B said:


> Just got 5 more Barrels of wax, dont need that much but price is right.... George B


Where did you get wax by the barrel? Best deal I could find came from hobby lobby. 
Regards, 
Krunch


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## Mr. C

Hobby Lobby was way high last time I looked. I don't know about barrels, but you can get 50lb boxes from candlewic.com for about 55 bucks plus shipping. That was the best price I found, but if you live near a candle facory etc you might be able to do better. Gum rosin I ordered from JH Calo, but you need a UPS shipping number.


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## krunch

Mr C ---- What can i say. http://www.candlewic.com/default.asp has the best price I have seen. 
Regards, Krunch


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## honeyhaus

Hi John, We came across 4 old stainless steel hamburger vats from a local meat company that closed down in town here. We had a welder put a 2 inch valve in the bottom {which we haven't used yet} in case we needed to drain it. We can dip 50 deep un-assembled boxes at a time or 58 7-5/8 at once. We bought several heating elements from our appliance store and use them to heat the wood. One per tank and we have a spare one. The temp is set at 165 degrees for about 8-12 hrs. At 180+ degrees the wood {some wood} starts to warp. Probably have done 7,000-8,000 boxes now without any incidents. We use one here in MI and are going to take another one down to FL for use down there.


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## krunch

honeyhaus said:


> We can dip 50 deep un-assembled boxes at a time or 58 7-5/8 at once. The temp is set at 165 degrees for about 8-12 hrs.


Honeyhaus --- Do you find that glue up after waxing creates a bond that isn't as substantial as dipping boxes after putting them together? What kind of glue do you use, or what it the process you are using to put your boxes together after dipping.
Regards, Krunch


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## slickbrightspear

what if instead of gum rosin you used propolis I wonder how that would work.


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## Michael Bush

Rosin, last I bought it, was about $0.20 a pound. Propoilis last I looked, was about $7 or more a pound. The bees treat it them both the same... I'm sure it would "work" fine...


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## slickbrightspear

I wasn't thinking of buying it just collecting my own.


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## Michael Bush

Sell the propolis and buy some rosin.


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## slickbrightspear

don't know someone said that the company that was buying all that propolis had quit thats why i was wondering.


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## Michael Bush

I haven't checked lately but I think C.C. Pollen was buying it among others...


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## homegrown

acbz said:


> I think Keith Jarret uses a double walled tank with a scrap wood fire below. I used a steel drum with electric band heaters.
> There are plenty of people using both fire and electric heating means with single wall tanks. As long as you stir the wax every so often, I don't think overheating should be a problem. Keep a close eye on the temps w/ a digital thermocouple thermometer. I'd keep it below 300 F. Don't do it indoors and keep fire extinguishers handy.


ACBZ: how many electric band heaters do you have on the steel drum? I'd like to set one up for myself to start dipping my boxes. I'm guessing you can only dip one deep at a time? Thanks

Cole


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