# Decapping with a heat gun?



## Mark Veenman (Jul 21, 2011)

Hi,
I just watched a youtube with a guy decapping with a heat gun. Any opinion on this?:no:


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## Mark Veenman (Jul 21, 2011)

Sorry, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL7vbrJ6Pvw&NR=1


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Slower than a hot knife or scraper. Looks like it works okay w/ new comb. I would think that old comb might work differently. How often does he singe that hairs off of his arm?


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## TIMER (Apr 17, 2011)

I bet as soon as that wax hits the side of the extractor it solidifies and builds up quickly
I've never seen it done like that before.


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## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

Looks like it might be fun to try. I'm thinking that the hot wax would solidify before the frame even hits the extractor. Seems like he's heating it just enough for the capping to melt and pull away from the side of the cells.

Wayne

Also celebrating anyone's marriage to the person that God intended them to be with.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Yeah, I wondered about that too. Also wondered how much it darkens the honey.


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## HiveOnTheHill (Jun 17, 2011)

This is how I uncap my frames. The heat is not on the honey long enough to darken it. My heat gun is a little different in that the end isn't round, it is tapered so I can direct the angle of airflow just enough to get the capping to melt away. Which doesn't take long because it is so thin. I like it because it leaves my frames at about 95% still built out (unless of course you daydream for half a second) and very little damage. It may be slightly slower than a knife or scraper but the wax is solidified by the time it goes into the extractor and for every 5 gallon pail of honey I had, I only strained out roughly a 1inch ball of wax. So the bit of extra time it takes to uncap, saves me immensely by having almost clean raw honey right off the start.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Cool. Or, maybe I should say "This is hot." I wonder how one would set this up on a commercial basis. I could imagine two facing heat guns that frames pass down between. I wonder how practicle this could be. The first problem I could see would be the possiblity of a fire. Wax, wood and flame have a tendency to cause fires.

This is a neat idea. Bears more study and development, perhaps.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

HiveOnTheHill said:


> This is how I uncap my frames.


We can't see what happens to the melted capping's in the video. If it solidifies it must leave openings in order for the extraction to work. Maybe surface tension pulls it off the top of the honey and it solidifies to the comb edges and leaves the cell open for the extraction process.
I assume there is no problem with the bees accepting this comb after the heat treatment.

Mark, you could almost take a standard packaging machine designed to heat seal pouches and turn the hot air elements vertical instead of horizontal so it would uncap on both sides at the same time. 60 frames a minute would not be unreasonable. How fast is an uncapping machine?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Not that fast, for sure. No one would have enuf extractors to keep up w/ the uncapping by heat. But that would be a minor problem, I would think.


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## brac (Sep 30, 2009)

Doesn't seem to make any mess either. Interesting.


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

Don't know what kind of heat the gun is throwing, but even a hair dryer will melt beeswax.


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## beyondthesidewalks (Dec 1, 2007)

Looks like it eliminates the need for a cappings tank and a way to deal with cappings. That in itself is worthwhile. Guess you'd get that little bit of honey that stays in the cappings also. You leave more of the comb intact so the bees wouldn't have to draw as much. Anybody have a report of how well the bees accept comb melted like this? Lots of positives and not as many overriding negatives. I have a special heating gun for heat shrink that looks like it will fit the bill. I'll try it out next year. Too bad this thread didn't happen about a month earlier.


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## Rick 1456 (Jun 22, 2010)

I'm intrigued enough to try it! I hate messin with all that capping wax and mess. Think of the honey you save because to bees do not have fix so much. Don't know but seems to me the bees will fix most anything you through at them. It is the square peg in the round hole.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

If the combs are still just as deep as before they were uncapped, seems like one could perhaps space out 8 per box for deeper combs. If you want deeper combs.


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## beyondthesidewalks (Dec 1, 2007)

I currently run 7 frames in my 8 frame supers so that I get those tall, easy to cut cappings. With this setup it would be much less wax provided by the bees every year to seal up the same amount of cured honey. I've never weighed my cappings to see how much honey they are worth but I imagine it adds up. I'm going to weigh my cappings wax after I get done running it throught the solar melter. Anyone remember the relationship between wax and honey?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Ratio? Some say a pound per can. If they are old timers who know what cans are. 1lb for every 60 lbs of honey. It may be more like 1lb for every 100 lbs now though.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Mark Veenman said:


> Hi, I just watched a youtube with a guy decapping with a heat gun. Any opinion on this?:no:


Is "decapping" your term or one you have heard, because I have always heard it refered to as "uncapping". Maybe it is a regionalism or maybe a newbeeism? Just curious.


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## Almondralf (Jun 20, 2011)

Did anybody else try the uncapping with the heat gun?- I am ready to extract my supers and was wondering if there is more experience out there how to use it?


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I hope you will give it a try and report back. I was planning to try it but left my heat gun behind. There are some flattened fan nozzles used on heat guns for applying and smoothing ski wax that give a bit more velocity to the air stream.
We have an electric knife and use the scratcher for the low spots but the scratcher action makes a lot of wax chaff that plugs strainer screens. The concept of the heat gun sounds interesting but will it work in the honey shack?


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Still have some more supers to pull & extract........ will give it the old college try and report back......... It seems as if it has merit and of course we all love to tinker.......................


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

I bet that with a little practice and the right nozzle on the gun and you could get pretty fast at this...

I'll be interested to see what snl comes back with.

Adam


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

beyondthesidewalks said:


> Anyone remember the relationship between wax and honey?


I believe the saying is 7 lb of honey or lb of wax. But I have also read that if the bees are continiously making wax, the ratio goes down considerably to 2-3 lb honey / 1 lb wax.

I think wax can hold somewhere between 10 and 20 times it's weight in honey.

This means that if the bees made all the wax at 7 to 1, the maximum increase would be less than 10%.

(if the bees uses 7 ponds of honey to make enough wax to hold 100 pounds of honey)


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Duboisi said:


> I think wax can hold somewhere between 10 and 20 times it's weight in honey.
> 
> This means that if the bees made all the wax at 7 to 1, the maximum increase would be less than 10%.


What kind of math is this?


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

Acebird said:


> What kind of math is this?


Division and percentages .

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.


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## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

Duboisi said:


> I believe the saying is 7 lb of honey or lb of wax.


I think that saying may not be accurate, given that other "sayings" report that 7 or 8 pounds of _nectar _is required. Since the moisture of nectar has to be reduced considerably to become honey, far less honey (or far more nectar) would be required to produce that pound of wax, depending on which saying is correct. They can't both be right. 

(This has been discussed at length in other threads.)

Wayne


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

If so that proves my point, and even more so.

Energy spent on wax production is a little factor in honey outcome.
Although the time it takes the bees to make the wax may have a larger impact. Not to mention when they run out of storage space, meaning they could have brought in more nectar if there was more free cells to put it in.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

The last I heard if they run out of storage space they swarm. Swarming consumes honey big time. They don't forage and they produce wax in the new hive. Wax = honey no matter how you look at it. Is wax worth more than honey? You tell me.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Until you know whether or not heat gun decapping works, it is moot to discuss what might be the net efficiency of (possibly) less comb damage. That is unless argument for argument sake is the real goal, Lol!


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## mrsl (Apr 21, 2010)

After I saw the video I thought it would be a huge timesaver (as compared to a knife or cappings scratcher), so I tried it. It worked great on the frames with 'dry' cappings (where the cap does not touch the honey - looks white), but the frames with 'wet' cappings (where the wax cap is in contact with the honey) did not do so well (the cappings would melt, but since they were in contact with the honey the wax did not pull to the sides of the holes like the 'dry' cappings, and I had to use the scratcher to open them up). I'm sure with practice I would get better at it, but I gave up on the heat gun and used a cappings scratcher to 'lift' the cappings, as I had seen on another video (which works very well, and isn't as tedious as it sounds ).


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

Acebird said:


> The last I heard if they run out of storage space they swarm. Swarming consumes honey big time. They don't forage and they produce wax in the new hive. Wax = honey no matter how you look at it. Is wax worth more than honey? You tell me.


It consumes honey because the bees don't forage but stay in the hive where they don't have any storage space. Check the results if you hive that swarm with pre-built frames instead.

It's hard to tell if wax is more worth than honey. The price per weight is higher, but then you have to buy it back in the form of foundation. If the bees had been quicker at drawing out their cells from scratch, there would probably not have been a market for wax-foundation.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Duboisi said:


> If the bees had been quicker at drawing out their cells from scratch, there would probably not have been a market for wax-foundation.


I use foundation to guarantee a proportionately large amount of worker cells versus drone cells. I think the general concesus IS that bees draw out foundationless faster. My objection to it is the difficulty to manage the worker/drone cell size proportions.


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

odfrank said:


> I use foundation to guarantee a proportionately large amount of worker cells versus drone cells. I think the general concesus IS that bees draw out foundationless faster. My objection to it is the difficulty to manage the worker/drone cell size proportions.


Interesting, I thought it was the other way around.

I think that at present we are selecting for bees that are very keen on producing drones. Since drone production is discouraged and they do not get enough room for drones, the hives that manages to produce enough drones so that enough gets to mate are favored. While those who do not produce that many drones, looses the few they have. (Exagerated i know).

If the bees were alowed to produce the comb they want to, we could possibly select hives that produce less drones. If the normal 15% could be reduced to less than 10%, it may not be a problem anymore.


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## rharlow (Mar 20, 2011)

Just found this:
http://www.ebka.org/userfiles/aug10ver1web.pdf

See page 12 and pictures on page 16


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