queen cell making

here are some pictures of wax cells I have made, I got fed up with trying to duplicate with accuracy, so made a mould up to cast all in one go.

Looks very impressive - you say you made the mould

Now that is sweet

yes I made the mould, took a piece of wood which was the same as the bar that holds the queen cups, and drilled holes all the way along the wood and attached the queen cups, then put box around and tipped in silicone to cast shape, use to make casts of soldiers years ago so applied the same principle, I shall wire this to the wooden frame and put into hive

I expect someone from the beekeeping supply shops are taking a great interest

Very inventive, I like that. Well done.

yeogi75 said:

here are some pictures of wax cells I have made, I got fed up with trying to duplicate with accuracy, so made a mould up to cast all in one go.

Click to expand...

What silicone product did you use to make the mould?

RTV two part silicone from ebay, im looking at making my own moulds for casting wax for candles etc

some more pics

Have you thought about; when you've poured the wax into the mould place a wooden strip on top so you don't have to wire the cups to the wooden strip

at the moment trying to come with some way of cutting out one cell without disturbing the rest, thinking I can cut between the wires take out one cell, it cuts nice when warm from the hive, not tried in hive yet but used room temperature as estimate heat

nice job.

nice job yeogi75, would a hair roller cage fit and stay on them?

I'll not sure that the, what looks like, copper wire to strap them on is a good idea mind. What about running a hot knife along each side?

Mike.

the wire is to hold the cells on to the wood slat , whilst I remove the cells that are fully developed I don't want to remove the rest , the later pics show cell cups that you buy when you buy a queen cell frame so I presume a curler will go over them , its an on-going project at the moment im not going to try to go commercial outer wise it would not appear here its just for myself and anyone who wants to copy the idea and improve on, its something when melting wax for other projects if I have some left over in the mould it goes and stored until wanted .

Sorry, it's not that you have wired them but that it's copper. I have a memory of someone on the forum saying it was not a good thing to have in a hive.

Mike.