Leclercq's CD ROM

Worker bees have eight wax-producing glands located on the inner sides of the sternites of abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker. They are at their largest when the bee is about 12 days old and decline steadily from its 18th to 19th day until the end of its life.

During this stage, the bee masticates the wax scales produced by the glands with its mandibles and jaws and at the same time adds salivary secretions to help soften the wax. Once the wax is well kneaded, it is deposited on the comb under construction or used to seal honey cells.

Beeswax has a very stable chemical make-up and its properties remain unspoilt by time. It is resistant to hydrolysis and natural oxidization and is completely insoluble in water. Apart from the larvae of the wax moth, no animal has the

Beeswax is lipid by nature and contains saturated hydrocarbons, acids or hydroxy-acids, alcohols, pigments, mostly from pollen and propolis, as well as minute traces of brood etc.

It is solid in appearance in normal temperatures, becomes brittle once the temperature drops below 18°C and quickly becomes soft and pliable at around 35° to 40° C.

The colour of beeswax changes with age, for example virgin wax is white but darkens rapidly as it ages, often becoming almost black.

This colouring process is due to the presence of diverse substances in the combs. Pigmentation in the wax usually gives shades of yellow, orange and red through to brown. This difference in colouring has no significance as far as the quality of the wax is concerned. Therefore, any attempt to bleach wax (ozonisation, sulphuric acid, hydrogen peroxide, etc.), as was so often recommended in the past, is not only useless but is now considered dangerous and should be proscribed.

In naturally constructed combs, cell dimensions, and therefore their number per dm2, vary greatly from one race to another. The average dimensions for cells built by races of European bees are between 5.13 mm (Apis mellifera lingustica) and 5.5 mm (Apis mellifera carnica).

Apis mellifera mellifera is somewhere in the middle with an average size of 5.37 mm which gives 800 cells per dm2 compared to 875 for lingustica and 760 for carnica.

All European races accept foundation wax with 800 cells/dm2 which as we have already seen is the perfect number for bees with 5.37 mm cells.

The actual number of cells per dm2 varies slightly with different models of foundation makers. Bees readily accept variations in size within certain limits: if they are too small, they are rejected, and if too big, the brood is likely to be predominantly male.

A plentiful season stimulates wax secretion while during hard times it ceases altogether. However, bees can seal their honey and brood cells even without an available honeyflow by reusing wax from existing comb.

1) The annual replacement of a number of frames ensures the continuing health of the colony. Old frames are an ideal spawning ground for diseases caused by spores and fungi.

2) Replacing frames with foundation wax also helps reduce swarming. When nurse bees have a shortage of young larvae to look after, they accumulate fat, and, if there are no new frames to work on, this can trigger swarming fever.

In practical terms, each hive should receive 3 brood frames of foundation wax as well as the equivalent of a super full of frames.

A certain percentage of the frames in the brood chamber should be eliminated every year. The comb from these frames is melted down to extract the wax . There are several methods of dealing with this job with differing results and yields.

However, apart from the different methods, darker comb yields much less wax than lighter-coloured comb. The reason is simple: darker, older comb has been used repeatedly for brood, so contains cocoons and waste or slumgum which absorb the wax, making it impossible to obtain all the wax during extraction.

The temperature only needs to rises above 68 to 70°C to render beeswax sufficiently fluid to be melted successfully in a solar extractor. A solar wax extractor produces top quality wax.

But, this method only yields 75% with old combs because when old combs are rendered, the mass of cocoon waste from successive brood acts as a sponge and soaks up the wax, thus reducing its flow.

Another drawback - the base has to be turned regularly towards the sun and in cloudy weather or weak sunlight there is no yield at all.

This method is not very efficient for old comb and is mainly used for melting down cappings or new comb.

This is the most popular method. Equipment must be made of aluminum, copper, or stainless steel. Zinc, pewter, tinplate and consequently galvanized iron are not recommended as they darken wax.

The combs are placed in a jute sack which then needs to be tied tightly. The sack is dropped into an large cooking pot or clothes' boiler filled with water. It needs to be weighted to make sure it sinks. Bring to the boil. Wax is lighter than water, so it will filter through the jute and rise to the surface. Once the combs have all melted, turn off the heat and leave the pot to cool down. The wax solidifies as it cools, forming an block on the surface of the water. Throw out any waste left in the sack.

The combs are put into a 120 litre container with 20 to 30 litres of boiling water and left to melt. When all the wax has melted, remove the wiring and tip the contents into a jute-lined press, then start pressing.

The wax runs out under pressure. After a first pressing of 20 T, the combs are mixed around in the sack and the pressure is once more applied. The procedure is repeated a third and final time. Each pressing should last 90 minutes.

The liquid runs into a recipient where the wax rises due to its difference in density.

The principle of these melters is the following: two communicating tanks are fixed either one inside the other or one over the other. The frames, combs or cappings for melting are put into an openwork metal basket inside the main tank.

Steam extraction is a satisfactory method for cappings but is less suitable for melting down old combs as it only yields 80 to 82 % of their wax.

The basket of old combs is plunged into a tank of boiling water fitted with a watertight cover. A piston

The tank is kept simmering for an hour. The wax runs out through a tap at the top of the tank. This type of wax melter can hold 60 brood combs or even more. Its yield reaches an excellent 90%.

For this method, the combs are melted down in boiling water and the mixture obtained is poured while still boiling into the baskets of a centrifugal wax extractor. The mixture must be kept at over 65°C to prevent the wax from setting.

This type of extractor is not suitable for treating small amounts of old comb or cappings and the system is very expensive to install due to all the piping required for the steam circuits.

Wax can also be extracted by using chemical solvents. To do this, the old comb is mixed with oily substances such as benzene, acetone, toluene or trichloroethylene.

This method is used in laboratories and is also frequently utilised in industrial wax production to squeeze the last drop of wax from residue left by classical presses. But wax obtained by this method always contains traces of solvents and as a result cannot be used in hives.

With this method, the beekeeper is saved from cutting out the combs before treating them. The frames and combs are placed between two vertical metal plates fitted with electric heating elements. A lever pushes the plates together and as the wax melts it runs into a recipient. When all the wax has melted the plates are opened and any slumgum or cocoon waste falls into another tank.

Depending on the model, this type of machine can processes from 30 to 80 frames an hour.

Regardless which system is used to render and extract the beeswax, it will solidify once it cools down. And regardless of the system used, the recuperated wax will be far from pure, containing a large quantity of water and numerous impurities.

To obtain purest quality beeswax, the mixture must be kept warm for as long as possible while decanting.

This can be done by using a heated-decanting tank. The simplest is a bucket placed in a sawdust-filled box covered with a thick lid. Once the wax has settled and completely cooled, the block is ready to take out of the mould.

Due to the difference in density between wax and water, the wax will rise to the surface of the water and any impurities will be trapped below it. Once the wax hardens, these can be scraped off the underside of the block.

If the beeswax cools too quickly, a large quantity of these impurities will be trapped inside the wax as the block sets and it will have to be rendered again.

To render cakes or blocks of beeswax, a tank with a water-jacket is heated to 80°C. Impurities are filtered out by opening taps situated at different levels on the tank.

Another technique consists of using a settling tank fitted with taps on different levels. Two openings, 3 cm apart, are fitted approximately at the wax-water level. This ensures the wax can be run off without its impurities.

Before doing this, the water has to be drained out of the tank by the lower of the two holes until the wax appears. Once this point is reached, the rendered wax can be safely drained through the top tap into buckets (plastic honey buckets) or pans which should be insulated from the ground (polystyrene or wood) and covered with a blanket to absorb excess moisture. The remaining wax has to be melted down again.

Cappings wax, probably because it is too pure, results in brittle much less pliable foundation than when made with combs, quite independent of manufacturing techniques.

Wax manufacturers favour comb wax but generally use a judicious mix of both in order to unite strength and pliability.

Flat-based wax presses similar to the one invented by Rietsche's are no longer the vogue as they tend to produce rather thick, brittle sheets of foundation and they take a long time to make.

These days this is the most popular method. There are two quite different procedure with rollers:

This is the quickest technique for foundation making. Liquid beeswax is poured straight onto water-cooled rollers embossed with the hexagonal cell shape. So, the wax is cooled and printed at the same time in a continuous ribbon which is cut to size further down the line.

In this procedure, a laminated sheet of wax is run through embossed rollers.

These machines are mainly used by professional foundation manufactures.

Standard practice is to make a long roll of plain beeswax approximately 3 to 4 cm thick by slowly rotating a smooth steel roller, which is cooled inside by water jets, in a tank of melted beeswax. A layer of wax forms on the surface and is removed by a strategically placed knife before going through laminating rollers. The rollers turn out a continuous sheet which, once cooled, is automatically wound into a large roll.

The pressure applied during this technique actually changes the physical characteristics of the wax so that the sheets are less brittle and more flexible than foundation made by other methods.

The laminated ribbon is now ready for the next step. The roll of wax is placed in tank of warm (40° C), soft water and carefully unwound. Due to its low density it floats. The end of the ribbon is fed into rollers surfaced with the hexagonal cell mould to produce a continuous ribbon of foundation. While rotating, the rollers are lubricated by a series of small jets of soapy water. The ribbon of foundation is cut to size and stacked automatically at the end of the production line.