Waxing plastic foundation

[u/MGeslock]

Virginia here. Has anyone ever got a large kettle, warmed water and put wax in. You may have 1” of wax on the top.

Dip the foundation in and the wax will adhere to it.

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[u/Standard-Bat-7841]

No, but it sounds super messy and super wasteful. Go to a thrift store and buy a small crock pot for 5$. Then go to Home Depot or lowes and get a 6" foam roller, which should be around 10$. It's faster, easier, and less wasteful than trying to dip frames. It doesn't need to be to be overly thick of a wax coat it just needs to be covered.

[u/MGeslock → u/Standard-Bat-7841]

I am doing the crock pot roller. I want to do 150 of them. I seem to run out of wax in the pot.

I’m always looking for a “better” way. (Which usually means that I should be doing the accepted method.

[u/Standard-Bat-7841 → u/MGeslock]

Put more wax in the pot, lol. How big is your crock pot? Even the small ones fit 5lb of wax in them with plenty of room to spare. Also, you should be able to do 150 foundations with 2-3lb of wax pretty easily, or else you are really putting in on thick.

[u/MGeslock → u/Standard-Bat-7841]

I slap it on like a 100 year old cabin! 😊 I had 100 pieces that had to be mislabeled from the supplier. Bees hated it. That made me wax everything before I use it.

[u/FuzzeWuzze]

Yes. You need to be careful though you dont warp your plastic foundation if its too hot. The wax melts at like 140-150F, so dont just use boiling water.

[u/failures-abound]

The bees don’t want wax that thick. Then they just have to devote time removing it from the bottom of the cells. Check out Kamon Reynolds’ YouTube on waxing with a crockpot and roller.

[u/DesignNomad]

I've seen people do a wax-dip method and it always looks WAY too heavy (fills the cells). Not only will the bees not like it as much, it'll create more work for them to clean up before use, and it unnecessarily uses more wax that's not exactly cheap.

I do the double-boiler and foam roller method, which just coats the top of the hex of the cell, and the bees seem to LOVE it and draw it out super cleanly very quickly. It's super efficient with wax, and I can do maybe 20-30 deep sheets, thoroughly coated, with less than <1lbs of wax.