# cappings wax - how much is produced per frame of honey?



## deejaycee (Apr 30, 2008)

Currently we sell our honey in bulk to a large packer who extracts for us, but we're just starting to do some budgets to see what it would take/could be in it for us if we extracted, packed and sold our own. 

of course, part of that mix becomes not just honey, but wax production - currently we are only paid honey prices for cappings wax, which, even if we do nothing with it but bag it and sell it raw to a foundation maker, is worth significantly more than honey price per kg.

Can anyone give me an indication of the weight of cleaned cappings wax recovered on a full depth frame? I know of course it will vary with the depth of the comb and how close it is cut, but a starting number would be helpful.


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Never mind, should have paid more attention to you post You answered the question I had.


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## seal62 (Apr 17, 2011)

Hey Dee ..Sorry i didnt see your post untill this am or i would have had you a answer . I shot a note to a friend in AU but its night time there . I'm positive he can give you numbers really close in kg . Hes off fishing tomarrow so if he checks his mail before he leaves i can have a answer for you tomarrow morning .


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## deejaycee (Apr 30, 2008)

Thanks seal, really appreciate it.


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## seal62 (Apr 17, 2011)

Hey,,,he did get back to me ..but i dont think he understtod what i asked because he had othe wax issues ..so i'll do this ..post a link and you can look for the answer . Be nice because im fond of the both ,,Best of luck to you .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWtNr0G1I_U


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## rocky1 (Jul 19, 2009)

Just ran our orange honey, 64 drums of honey netted 635 lbs of finished wax... plus slum gum of course. If I had to guess, maybe another 20 - 30 lbs in the slum. 

Some of those supers were light, some were heavy, of the 2000 or so we pulled (_many of which didn't hold much in all honesty_), roughly 550 or so were feed supers that were burred up pretty bad and stretched way out, thus yielding a bit more wax per frame... So doin the math to arrive at the answer to the question you asked... 

2000 supers x 8 frames per box = 16000 frames 
635 lbs of wax / 16000 frames = Not very much "per frame"!


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## deejaycee (Apr 30, 2008)

brilliant, thanks Seal and Rocky. 

I'll have to watch the vid later (sneaking in from the day job).

Thanks so much for the detail Rocky - I make it about 18 grams per frame.  Silly way of asking probably - could have gone with 'per tonne of honey' as easily, but as you noted, depending on the number of frames in a box, etc, it can vary a good bit. 

Out of interest, can I ask how heavy your drums are?


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## rocky1 (Jul 19, 2009)

Yes sir, it certainly can... It can also vary considerably dependent upon whether they are Deep, 3/4 depth, medium, or shallow supers. (_Ours are all medium depth... 6 5/8 inch 10 Frame supers, with 8 frame spacer._) Likely not silly from a hobbyist perspective, however from a commercial perspective where you run several hundred supers a day, frame yield isn't questioned. 

Sue Honey Drums typically average just under 700 lbs gross weight, (_but again here, that's dependent upon how full you fill them_), and 35 lbs of that is drum weight, so for the sake of calculating, let's give it a net weight of roughly 650 lbs of honey per drum.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

1 - 2% of the honey weight


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## seal62 (Apr 17, 2011)

Hey Dee ...he got back to me ...60- 70 grams per frame.With the kindness you boyz down under show it sure is hard not to visit .:applause:..wow i just checked above,,,i have to look again


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## deejaycee (Apr 30, 2008)

thanks everyone - that's all starting to add up now. odfrank's number is consistent with where i'd come to as well. 

*lol* Rocky, you've sure got me on scale - I think we'll be aiming for about 5 tonnes metric - about 11000 lbs, so maybe a quarter of your orange honey crop alone. So valuable though to have that scaled up perspective. 

Seal - had a look at the video, he seems a really good sort  I'll have to watch the rest - we haven't got SHB here in NZ yet. Yet. Darn things will show up sooner or later. 60-70 sounds about right for cut-out yields. 

oh.. just for the record.. I'm a female.


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## rocky1 (Jul 19, 2009)

OH... Make that a Yes Ma'am then! My apologies Dee. 

Wasn't trying to pick on you, but on a commercial scale you simply see too many "frames" go by in a day, to contemplate much of anything in frame count. Cowen Automatic Extracting System running full bore, mid-summer, when I'm not trying to dry combs down completely, just get them empty and back on the bees, I'm running a 6 1/2 minute cycle on the extractor, and when the kids on the uncapper are paying attention, they can load the conveyor in just under that. Takes about a minute and a half to load/unload the extractor and get it rolling again, so... We're cranking out 120 frames about every 7 1/2 - 8 minutes. Or, a frame going by, every 4 seconds, 8 - 9 hours a day, for several months!!


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## deejaycee (Apr 30, 2008)

no offense taken at all Rocky  actually we work in tonnes and boxes for the most part too, but husband's day job is blueberry production and mine is data analysis and database design for a hort consultancy mainly working in apples - so we both break everything back to kg and grams out of habit, even if we're talking thousands or millions of kilos.

*lol* that's some serious turnaround.

Funny, I was looking at Cowen's website just yesterday - salivating over their .. is it 'parallel' extractors? The ones that spin vertically rather than horizontally - that's probably the same unit you've got? very, very nice! I can imagine you'd at least halve your turnaround time just in loading the extractor alone compared to a horizontal.


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## rocky1 (Jul 19, 2009)

If you were loooking at the 120 frame Air Ram system, that would be the one Dee. 

The Cowen system is to say the least, an amazing piece of machinery. They are not necessarily cheap by any means, but they are amazingly efficient. And, yes they are a time saver, after your equipment becomes relatively uniform and consistent. Until it's all fairly uniform and consistent, there will be days that you will want to bang your head against the wall, repeatedly!


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