# Permacomb wax dipping



## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

I wax coat mine using a empty 5 litre paint tin, I only bought 30 p/c frames cos at the time I had two hives,

First I heated up the p/comb with a hot air gun and at the same time I heated the wax that had about 30% water in the bottom
Of the tin, when the wax was about simmering I wood dip end up until most of the bubbles stopped rising and then shake most of the wax onto a old laminated work top which made scrapping up and putting back into the wax tin affective with little waste, then turned the comb up the other way until I had done all 30 frames.

Cos my hive equipment is different from yours I had to cut the p/c to fit my frames which gave me a bottom bar that has stop any bridging comb to frames above and below, cos I cut the p/c frames I had I lot of cut-offs so I heated the sides with a hot air gun and stuck them together and thay held really well and it gave me 10 more frames. 

Pics of waxed frames and off cuts that were stuck together and mounted in wooden fames.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h319/tony350i/8111dad6.jpg 

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h319/tony350i/83073de2.jpg 

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h319/tony350i/Pic_0005.jpg 


Tony

[ September 15, 2006, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: tony350i ]


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## Ron Young (Aug 16, 2006)

So does the permacomb only come in supper size and not for the deep boxes. How do you secure it into the frames, and is diping in hot wax necesary? I spoke to the man on the phone, and he advised that sparying the comb would work as well, and then when the bees coated it, it would be between 4.7-4.8mm.


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

Ron

the pics Tony posted are of the modification he had to make to get Permacomb to fit the hives they use in England, which are a different size than here
if you buy Permacomb it comes complete in its own frame and fits a medium box
I think Permacomb is something like 5.1 mm out of the box and these folks are talking about wax dipping it to get it down to 4.9 mm

Dave

[edit] he advised spraying it with what??

[ September 15, 2006, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: drobbins ]


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## Kelbee (Jan 3, 2006)

Tony,
Great input. I didn't realize I could get by with only one pan instead of the double boiler setup. The boiling water stays on bottom and the hot wax floats on top, so there's really no need to separate them with another pan.
Great idea also about dipping 1/2 a frame at a time. Not only allows you to use a smaller pan, I can see how it gives you plenty of frame surface to hold onto while dipping.


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## Patrick Scannell (Jul 3, 2004)

I used a setup made for deep-frying turkeys. A deep pot over propane flame, outside - to keep the house safe from wax fire accidents.

I melted paraffin over gently boiling water, dipped half a frame, tapped it on the edge of the pot, dipped the other half, tapped it too, and went to the next frame. That is it, no preheating required.
You can adjust the temperature of the plastic by the amount of time it is left in the water/wax.

I dipped a few hundred frames this way and they are full of bees now. I'm happy with them.


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## Ron Young (Aug 16, 2006)

Kind of neat, however, I had planned to use two deeps as my brood and stores area, and then supper above that with mediums. Wonder if there are any plans of developing deep frame permacomb?


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## Kelbee (Jan 3, 2006)

Thanks again everyone for the great ideas.

Ron, you might check out Honey Super Cell frames. It's fully drawn small cell comb that comes in deep sizes only. It's pretty new (i.e. untested?).


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## kenpkr (Apr 6, 2004)

"I had planned to use two deeps as my brood and stores area, and then supper above that with mediums. Wonder if there are any plans of developing deep frame permacomb?"

Oy vey! those will be some heavy deeps! 
2-3 mediums would work as well as 2 deeps and you could have the option of moving frames up or down if you needed to. Can't do that so well with deep frames and medium frames. I'm trying to switch to all mediums now. Wish I'd started out that way.

There is a new small cell deep frame on the market- Honey Super Cell. Search for it, they have a website.


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## Kevin M (Aug 11, 2006)

I bought 110 permacombs about 2 weeks ago. John Seets sends printed suggestions with the permacomb. He says use a brush once the permacomb is dipped in hot wax,this allows the wax to work down into each cell, the brush bristles pop each freshly waxed cell, letting the get down into the cells. Does anyone do it that way...?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>So does the permacomb only come in supper size and not for the deep boxes.

Yes. But as mentioned HSC comes in deeps. I WISH Honey Super Cell came in mediums...

> How do you secure it into the frames

As mentioned, you don't.

> and is diping in hot wax necesary?

Only if you want small cell.

> I spoke to the man on the phone, and he advised that sparying the comb would work as well

If acceptance is your only issue crowding them into a box with nothing else works and spraying with sugar syrup or syrup with some kind of smell helps.

> and then when the bees coated it, it would be between 4.7-4.8mm.

Eventually (after many generations of brood) maybe. The bees won't coat it but they will leave cocoons behind. PermaComb is about 5.0 inside diameter which is about 5.1mm equivalent (when you discount the thicker cell walls from the standard field measurement that includes cell walls) With plan PermaComb you will get the equivalent of 5.1mm cells.

>Any tips or suggestions from those who have done this to improve the results and to help the operation go smoothly?

Wear clothes you don't mind throwing away. Including boots etc. Everything will be spattered with wax.

>One obstacle I see is the double boiler setup. Specifically, I need a pan shaped like a frame to minimize the volume of wax we'll need. Any suggestions on what to use?

I used an electric turkey broiler. It's long enough. I do wish it was deeper and maybe even wider, but it worked.

>Kind of neat, however, I had planned to use two deeps as my brood and stores area, and then supper above that with mediums.

I wouldn't:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#uniformframesize
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#lighterboxes
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeseightframemedium.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnewbees.htm

> Wonder if there are any plans of developing deep frame permacomb?

Planned and executed by Honey Super Cell.


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## Kelbee (Jan 3, 2006)

I'd like to share our experience with hot wax dipping of Permacomb. Can someone tell me how to include some pictures in a post? Thanks.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Post them on one of the many free hosting areas and then put the links in the post.


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## Kelbee (Jan 3, 2006)

I haven't done that before. Can you direct me to a specific site? Thanks.


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## Kelbee (Jan 3, 2006)

Okay, I found a site and figured it out.

My brother Wade and I did a Permacomb hot wax-dipping session a couple of weeks ago. This is our after action report. Please excuse the length, but I figured the details might be helpful. Heres a link to a picture of our setup.

http://s132.photobucket.com/albums/q21/kdpridgen/?action=view&current=Photo_100706_001.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch1

Equipment:
Dipping pot/double boiler (bottom right in picture): We used a stainless steel soda keg as the dipping pot. I had a damaged soda keg lying around and cut the top off with a torch to make a tall (20), skinny (9) pot. We set it into an old chipped 8 gallon enamel lined kettle (previously used for brewing beer) filled with water to make the double boiler. We heated it with a cajun-style outdoor propane burner. We stabilized the dipping pot with 4 guy wires so it wouldnt tip over and spill hot wax everywherethis made it very stable. We melted wax to the 10+ inch level to begin, and periodically added more wax when the level dropped. 

Tapping can (bottom left in picture): A small metal garbage can with a thick (3mil) plastic garbage bag liner. We pulled the bag down over the sides to make a shallow bowl of plastic inside the can for collecting excess wax. To our pleasant surprise, the garbage bag held up fine. We had no problems with hot wax melting through the plastic. When the wax cooled, it was easy to separate it from the plastic and simply dump it back into the dipping pot.

Supplies: Bees wax. How much?
For 100 frames we started with about 30 pounds of wax and finished with less than 15. There was some waste with our method but not much. It was a fairly clean operation. I doubt if the waste amount to more than a few ounces.


Procedure:
Step 1: Per MBs excellent guidance, we heated the PC frames in a 200 degree gas oven. We did 10 frames at a time spaced evenly in a standard medium hive body. 20 minutes in the oven was adequate. More than 20 minutes added nothing. Less than 20 minutes didnt heat the PC sufficiently and there was wax clumping when dipped.

Step 2: Using gloved hands we dipped ½ of a frame into the dipping pot, swirled it for a few seconds to insure all the cells got filled, lifted it above the wax, then tapped it back and forth on the inside of the dipping pot to remove most of the excess wax (This was a nice feature of using a 20 tall pot. We were able to keep most of the wax inside the pot without wasting much or making a big spattering mess.). We then flipped the frame over and dipped the other ½.

Step 3: We positioned the frame flat over the tapping can and tapped it repeatedly on the edge of the metal can to remove excess wax. Flip it over, retap, flip it over, etc. until all excess wax is gone.

4.	Step 4: Cooling station (rear area of picture) was a simple flat area on the floor. We set the frames upside down on their top bars to cool. They balance nicely on a flat level surface. Pack them back in their boxes when cool.

Time management:
Dont approach this as an afternoon project that you think you can wrap up in a couple of hours. This is an all day process. It took us about 10 hours for 100 frames. Plan 2-3 hours (or more) just to get the wax heated using the double boiler. Thereafter, the rate limiting step is preheating the PC (step 1). Once the wax is hot, plan on about 20 frames an hour unless you have a way to heat more than 10 frames at a time. The vast majority of time is down time though (waiting for wax to melt or for PC to heat in the oven) so you can do something else productive as long as it will tolerate frequent interruptions.


Mess:
We wore old, throwaway clothes. They had wax spatters on them when done (mostly on our pants and shoes, minimal above the waist although I did find some in my hair afterwards). Plastic sheet under the work area made cleanup pretty easy. The double boiler pans are probably useless now for any other purpose.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Thank you for the detailed description. I think you'll love the results.


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## wade (Apr 1, 2006)

We actually ended up with barely 10 pounds of wax. That amounted to about 3.2 ounces per frame that was "lost," in addition to the amount needed to keep the volume up. I think we came up short in the end so allowing for even more is advisable.

Kelbee, that was cool of you to post this.


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## kenpkr (Apr 6, 2004)

Thanks Kelbee and Wade. I'm planning to dip sometime this winter and this is the kind of detailed instruction that I need. Now where can I get enough clean, chem-free wax to dip 30-40 frames?! (and not spend a fortune in the process)
Thanks again.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I bought my wax from Fatbeeman.


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## wade (Apr 1, 2006)

I borrowed 20 pounds from a beekeeper friend and had to buy 20 more pounds of unfiltered from Glorybee at $3.50/ pound, and it wasn't organic. If you want chemical free wax then probably need to about double that price unless you have a nonretail source.


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## applebwoi (Jun 20, 2006)

Patrick: "I melted paraffin over gently boiling water"

I thought you had to use beeswax?? Will paraffin do just as well? Probably a lot cheaper. I thought it was a petrolium product.


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## Patrick Scannell (Jul 3, 2004)

applebwoi: Paraffin worked fine for me. The bees moved in and started raising brood without a problem. I still have some, and would use it again.

Is beeswax better? Probably.


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