Using hot wax dipping to preserve bee hive boxes

hello mr. adhere today is February 15th 2019 and I'm here at the Abbey it's about 8:30 in the morning right here and if you can kind of guess what I'm doing with this trailer loaded up with these boxes I'm headed up to Hamlin and what am I gonna do up in handle well these boxes there's I think there's about 60 something boxes on the trail right now and and then the 40 that are in the truck it's the hundred boxes that I put together right at Christmastime I'm going up to Hammond and we're gonna get these babies hot wax dip and what we're doing is we're dipping the the B box instead of painting them we're going to be dipping them in a paraffin wax that it's got gum resin in it that will by dipping the boxes into the into the VAT the wood actually becomes impregnated with the wax and therefore the need of painting is not necessary even though you can't paint them after you after they come out the bat but by the process it virtually eliminates painting the need to paint the wax will prolong the life of these boxes at least at least by 68% I mean even more these boxes they can last up to ten years even you know I've been saying 20 but I don't believe it but ten years so the investment of dipping these boxes as opposed to painting them and replacing them over the over the long term of that 10 years it's a worthwhile investment to do it so for me it's in experiments we'll try it see how it works and you know I think it's gonna work pretty good for us by the grace of God we'll head up to Hammond y'all meet Bryan is gonna be doing the work for us and show how the process is done you'll probably give a better explanation on me than how to do it but I think it's all gonna work good click go wrangle these boxes up to Hammond and get these bad girls dipped with hot wax it's Bryan and and this is his boiling that that that we've got filled with paraffin wax and resin gum rosin random rock he's got a tent pitched over here right now because it's threatening to rain right now and you can't get any any kind of water inside of this well it'll fall up and then you're in trouble yes we don't want it we want to be in trouble so he does three of them at a time and they'll cook in 15 minutes and I'll show you the process of them cooking as well as drying and it's a very fast process and trying to put so this fat is built to the whole accommodate three deep boxes now put two in long ways and stair-step the and then put one in the center [Music] [Music] so that poem you see that's moisture coming out of the box around and how much will that foam foam up so it depends on how much moisture is in the wood if there's a lotta if there's a lot of moisture in the wood which are typically on a day like today because the real human heats gonna cook all the water out and it's gonna replace it with the gun rot and with the paraffin wax and gum rot and that's the reason that the boxes last so long so explain explain to me what you told me before about how you know when the the moisture in the wood has been replaced by the wax so when we first put them in there it'll start foaming and then it'll the foam will grow or it will get more and more phone and I'll judge it by this line that's in here so as it'll get higher and higher and then when of the moisture is out it'll start going down and then that's I know the moistures out and up from the wood out from the wood the wood is hot and able to absorb the paraffin and it's gotta be heated to collect a paraffin and gum rosin mixture in the wood the gum rosin all it does is it acts as an adhesive to not let the because when the would shrink again or shrinks back down gets it will push the paraffin out of the wood but if you got the gum rosin will makes it sticky to where it can't push it out of the woods inside the wood very slick so if you notice on the boxes that are already done they're not they don't have a waxy coating on them because all the waxes in the wood it's not on the outside if you didn't cook it properly and didn't have gum rosin in here you would have wax on the outside which would just fall off or you'd be able to knock it off and it wouldn't be treated gonna be heat treated how long how long do you have to cook the boxes in the end of paraffin so most of the articles say ten minutes 12 minutes I could mine for 15 just to be on the safe side and now watch the foam as well so it really is the foam is the indicator as to the time of the yes so I like to I like to have my temperature of my wax around 280 and you have to keep a watch on it because of about 315 315 320 the wax will ignite itself because it's even into that it yeah it'll just catch fire because it's a petroleum product so is that what candles are made out of so they're gonna burn at 300 and what about 320 it's gonna it's kind of just ignite yes so watch your thermals yeah so there's a fine line and amidst all this video we're doing but really in troubling I mess up a lot Tim really truly the timer is only a guideline to get me to start looking because I'm looking at the phone and if it's going up or down or what it's doing so it's going down and mean some moisture out of there so time to take them out I know it's been over 15 minutes so you've taken out to push a block first yeah I'm gonna take out the pusher so all of this all of this kind of speckly stuff that's gum rosin there's a part of the gum Ross and that doesn't dissolve well and every time you I add some gum rods into it you get that and it clears up and you can scrape that off yeah it's not really easy after it cools down so take them out let them drain and if you watch him they go from draining to dry pretty quick and that's it the heat it's sucking in that it's sucking in that that paraffin see like this is already dry it's just sucking it in so it so like right here in this joint right here where it's bubbling right there so it's just sucking it all in and that's really what I like about the idea of the panthan because when you paint you just painting on the surface and you're painting on the outside you're not so you got you got it on it on this side that on the inside I mean it's pretty much all the way through to that one so now it's not stuff then you have a three quarter inch board and each side is it's going in at least at least a quarter inch for sure I know but so yeah so we're pretty much dry now so I can take them off and and other videos this is the time to paint on with you if you're planning on painting your house this is the only time that you do to paint them and when they're hot and still X or bit if you let them cool down the paint won't stick it'll never stick now what are you gonna do at this point [Music] so that like your favorite part of it so after you tip a certain amount does that stuff become less yeah so it's only after you've put in that the rosin that you'll get this stuff that is French okay so Brian what are you doing right here so I am replenishing the paraffin wax and how often do you have to do that so a box will absorb about four ounces of wax per month and I've got to keep my level to where I will cover all the boxes that I'm gonna put him so then how often do you know I mean how do you know I want them to put the oh just watch the level soap you probably won't we'll have to do this process at least several times several times long cooking bottles in addition to the paraffin wax you got to put gum rosin in it so how much gum resin you put in there so I'm out of about 15 before and it's not an exact science when I first built this pot the original line was right here and so when you're cooking you cooking the moisture on the boxes and it foams up tonight extended it another six inches to accommodate this right here this fall if you didn't have that lip on there that I don't know that our other six inches I would already be in trouble right now so the fire department would be here yeah we don't like that we don't want to see the fireman today look at this Brian's got the whole job finished it took almost 12 hours to complete this job 102 boxes working three boxes every 15 minutes it's not a fast process I have to leave Saturday around 12:00 1:00 o'clock I had to leave here Brian kept on work and he worked so almost 10 o'clock that night Saturday night and here it is Monday morning I'm coming to pick him up so I've got left to do is secure them on the trailer and then bring them back to the Abbey so it's all I have for you a net one for this room so thanks for watching Brian thank you me doing this job Horace keep on watching I'll be making more god bless mr. ed I'm out of here until the next video [Music] two more traps set one of the column that I must have pulled three bees at three colonies of bees out of last year that one set on top of that well that box right there oh those are that's a swarm I caught last year and look look at this yeah I haven't come pick that one up yet that was gonna get I have to get picked up I have another box put on it and then I set one more on the other column this place is just like behaving back here let's go set some more traps so I mean Bush right now and I finished setting two traps one of them I put on on this corner by the little shed right here during the summer there were there were I saw three hives in this shed there's none in there right now but as I'm setting these traps now I've got I've got Scout bees flying all around me right now well folks today is February 16th 2019 and look what has just arrived at the Abbey huh they got here at around 11 o'clock today look at that I think I think we've seen seven or eight of them so far the listen to that sound music to your ears huh for all us purple Martin lovers that is

Channel: Jeff Horchoff Bees

Views: 90,813

Keywords: Using hot wax dipping to preserve bee hive boxes, bee hive, gum resin, peraffin wax, fires, wax fires, bee boxes, benifits of coating bee boxes with wax, dangers of melting wax, safety measures, purple martins, setting swarm traps, catching swarms

Id: RwjSmZimelQ

Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2019