# making cell cups?



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/products.asp?pcode=506
http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/products.asp?pcode=505


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## JohnBeeMan (Feb 24, 2004)

I was also thinking about using some 'natural' wax cups next year. I have plenty of wooden dowels to make dipping stick. What I was wondering is, 'What is best type of wax to use for making queen cups'? I have some wax that is just cappings and some that is a mixture of cappings and brood comb and could make up some that is just old brood.

If the dipping stick were to be made from something other than wood, what would be the method to get the wax to release ( the reason you dip the wooden dowel in water prior to dipping in wax)?


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## yoyo (Jun 13, 2007)

Maybe water or grease of some kind could still be used. I would not think that the wax type would make much difference if it is melted and filtered. I saw a person who had made a dipping stick with about 5 or 6 dowels. He dipped all dowels in at one time with that stick. He used an electric frying pan to melt the wax, and after the first dip or two ,did not dip all the way down from then on. This left a thin rim which he said was what the bees naturally do. I can make some dowels, just thought someone might have a plastic thingy nowdays.


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## JohnBeeMan (Feb 24, 2004)

I read that the best dipping method was to start with the full depth dip on first dip, then each consectutive dip to reduce by 1/16inch. This will produce a thin edge but a thick base. It also said to spin the stich as it is withdawn from the wax to make a uniform coating.

A releasing agent simliar to those used for candle molds may work.


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## tarheit (Mar 26, 2003)

You can soak the dowel rod to to keep the wax from permanently sticking to it.

-Tim


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## JohnBeeMan (Feb 24, 2004)

Tim.
I know about soaking the wooden dowel in water. But I think the initial question was what about other materials for the rod.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Seems like other materials, especially plastic (which is waterproof), would be entirely unsuitable since one of the most important parts of the process is to remove the wax, intact from the mold and then to reuse the mold for the next cup. Wood does this extremely well, when you keep it internally damp.


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## yoyo (Jun 13, 2007)

ok, so what is the diameter if making a wooden dowel dipper? I assume a nice bullet shape(9mm) taper at the end is needed.


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## bksss (May 16, 2007)

*Wax cups*

I tried this and was able to make cups. Last summer was my first year working with honey bees so I did not get a chance to use them,

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-49891567890517190


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## Bizzybee (Jan 29, 2006)

Nice job bk! No doubt that will help some folks out to see your vid.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>'What is best type of wax to use for making queen cups'?

Clean white wax.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#DippingCells


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

yoyo said:


> ok, so what is the diameter if making a wooden dowel dipper? I assume a nice bullet shape(9mm) taper at the end is needed.


9mm is what I've read. if you look in a natural queen cup they appear to be more spherical on the inside than bullet shaped.


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## TwT (Aug 5, 2004)

I think I use 5/16 dowel rod rounded off on the end, after making one at a time for a while, I went and and cut a small block of wood , drilled holes in it and mounted 6 of these rods, looked like a brush, worked fine just had to make sure you lowered it evenly, 6 cups at a time then..


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## honeyman46408 (Feb 14, 2003)

TwT said:


> I think I use 5/16 dowel rod rounded off on the end, after making one at a time for a while, I went and and cut a small block of wood , drilled holes in it and mounted 6 of these rods, looked like a brush, worked fine just had to make sure you lowered it evenly, 6 cups at a time then..


I saw one kinda like that but it had 5/16" SS bolts rounded off and 15 on 1" wide steel bar and they dipped 15 at a time also they set the cups on a wooden bar after the cups were finished and spooned hot wax around the cups fastining them to the bar then after diping in water they pulled the bolts out of the wax and it was ready to graft in and put into the clell builder 15 @ a time.


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## ian m davison (Jan 21, 2007)

*Rubber cell former*

Hi all

https://secure.thorne.co.uk/cgi-bin...spage&THISPAGE=page22.html&ORDER_ID=192752326


Regards Ian


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## fat/beeman (Aug 23, 2002)

*cell cups*

if you want to make lot of cell cups use a dowel rod of right size 5/16 or 3/8 put 3 rows of 5 soak them in water 15 minutes before starting. I use 5/16 for small cell queens. hope this will help you.
Don


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

if I had a 'plastic' cell making dowel I would likely try pam as a release agent.

use your best wax... good capping wax strained and filtered one time should work just fine.

if you desire to make the wax a bit less brittle add just a bit of pine rosin.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

Steve Taber conducted research on cell cup size. He used glass cups and varied both the diameter and depth.

9mm x 9mm was the optimum cell cup size.

An electric drill and a piece of fine sandpaper can be used like a wood lathe to shape the end of the hardwood dowel. Make several dowels. With use you will find a favorite.

In use, I'd dip the dowel in cool water. Touch the bottom to a paper towel to remove the small adhering drop of water(produces bubbles). And make a cup with about three dips.

The melted wax should be on the cool side. It should be just starting to solidify around the edge of the melting pan.

I used dipped queen cups when I first started my queen business. They are fast, easy and cheap to make. But they are very fragile. I switched to JZ BZ plastic queen cups. They're reusable, durable and cheap. I give mine a thin wax coating before using them.

Regards
Dennis


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

BWrangler said:


> I give mine a thin wax coating before using them.
> Regards
> Dennis


How do you coat them?


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## honeyman46408 (Feb 14, 2003)

Michael Palmer said:


> How do you coat them?


Well looks like none of the xperts are going to answer sooo.

WHEN I use the Jenter type box I coat the plastic cell cups by heating a pot of wax and useing a "seiv" I dip and swish them around and keep swiishing them above the pot till cool leaving a thin coat of wax


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

Couldn't have said it better myself. Use a hotter beeswax melt than would be used for dipping. Place your cups inside a strainer and immerse them in the hot, molten beeswax.

Let the cups warm up in the hot wax, then swirl them around in the wax. With used cups, the molten beeswax acts as an effective solvent and sloshing the cups removes most foreign debris.

Once sloshed, the cups that is :>), remove them and shake/rotate them, in the strainer, over the wax pan to remove any excess wax.

When I reared queens for money, I would first boil the cups in water. But found that step unnecessary. A few cups will have a cocoon or foreign debris in them. Just set them aside. Then sort them out when grafting and process them with the next batch.

Reserve a pan of beeswax for cleaning/coating cups. Propolis and pollen will darken the wax. The wax can be strained to remove larger debris. And it can be run through a hot grease filter which is used to strain fryer oil and is available through commercial kitchen suppliers. That will remove the pollen and most of the propolis as well as lighten the wax.

I would usually process a couple thousand cups this way. But it should work great on a much smaller scale as well.

Regards
Dennis
Thinking faster than one day delivery will cost extra :>)


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

ian m davison said:


> Hi all
> 
> https://secure.thorne.co.uk/cgi-bin...spage&THISPAGE=page22.html&ORDER_ID=192752326
> 
> ...


Thanks, Ian. Ive been looking for those nursery frames and wooden cell 
cups ever since I seen them in use on that German queen rearing video.
I'm going to order two of the nursery frames with cages for use this 
upcoming year. I don't think I'm built up enough to handle raising more 
than 40 queens at a time. I'm still making my mini nucs when I have time
so I'll have enough when I need them.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How do you coat them?

I made a basket out of #8 hardware cloth and put the cups in there and swished them through the wax and then dumped them on some foil and stirred them around until "dry".


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

*size*

3/8" works great 


I would use Capping wax for the queen cell cups *(old dark brood combs will work great if you have not used any chemicals for mite control)*


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

Great and very important point. Thanks Velbert. I'd forgot to mention it.

Coumophos is especially bad. Personal experience: I was contract rearing queens for a commercial beekeeper on condition that he hadn't use Coumophos in any hive used for queen rearing. He assured me that he had several yards that hadn't been treated and that he didn't use Checkmite. So, I went to work.

It takes about a brood cycle and a half to get a standard yard ready for sustained commercial queen rearing. After that, the bees looked good and I started grafting.

I usually graft less on the first round and then ramp up on the second round. I grafted 600 cups . Four days later, I grafted a full round of about 1000 cups but was shocked to find that out of the first 600, there was about 20 accepted!!! What to do? I put the grafted cups in.

Returning on day 11 to incubate the first round, I found 8 cups had been accepted in the second batch!!!! 28 out of 1600 isn't anywhere near 90 percent. I'd never experienced anything like it. That's a very poor return on a months investment and labor. I shut the operation down.

Guess what I saw in the commercial beeks shop when I informed him of my decision? A head high stack of empty Checkmite boxes and a couple of boxes of pulled strips. Bet I know where those pulled strips came from. And even worse, I bet I know where the remaining strips still were at. In those honey producing colonies that's where!

Out of the 28 only two mated successfully. And if research is correct, I bet they didn't last very long before they were superceded.

That was the end of my commercial queen rearing. And my end with commercial beekeeping.

Regards
Dennis
Thinking a wise beekeeper will measure queen acceptance 6 months after introduction rather than two weeks.


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## fat/beeman (Aug 23, 2002)

*no=strips*

I found that queens did lot better without the strips back in 1990"s so I went no treatments and found the rates of acceptence went up also.by replaceint all my foundations with new it also helped. now in 2007 found the rate is up 80%and better. the queens reared from this I found they lasted lot longer some 3=4 yrs as reported to me by the buyers. so you can raise queens but not in large numbers.
Don=========merry christmas


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## JohnBeeMan (Feb 24, 2004)

I tried my first attempts at making wax cups today. I found the biggiest difficulty in depth of dipping. I guess this will come with experience.

I was using a double boiler method to melt the capping wax. I found that this tends to get the wax a liitle too hot and the cups where on the thin side and hard to get off the dowels. 

I then got the idea of moving the inside pot over to the automatic coffie burner (which always stays below boiling point). Once I did this I was able to get nice thick wax cups which were easy to get off the dowells without distorting their shape. 

I am using a cast iron type double boiler so I can remove it from heat and get quite a few dippings before there is much of a temperature change in the wax. It appears as if the best dippings come just befor ethe wax jells over.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*Soap Is Used*

Use some IVORY bar soap and it will work fine. I just took you back to the early years of queen production
I think that the liwuid Ivory dish soap will work. Check it for additives,
Good Luck,
Ernie


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*Wax For Cell Cups*

Save all of your natural comb from either a swarm or offer the bees a 1 to 2" strip of thin surplus foundat and attache it to the top bar. Place it in the grooved top bar and add some melted wax to hold it in place. Let the bees draw it out on a spring honey flow. Let the bees add their comb to the foundation until the frames is about 2/3 drawn out. Remove the nice new frame containing honey and wax. Place this comb on the hive entrance at about 3-4:00 PM and let the bees transfer the honey out. Next morning remove the frame and harvest you chemical free wax.
I read an article that was documented. The chemical used for mite control progressively reduced the weight of the virgin queen in direct proportion to the ppm concentration of the miticide. Good Science & Good Application so that we now know. That is why I use plastic cell cups from Mann Lake!
Good Luck,
Ernie


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