beeswax cost per pound

[keith pierce]

I have a woman ringing, looking for 2lb of bees wax . I have never sold it to the public before as it always went for conversion to foundation , so I was wondering what to charge her. Off the top mf my head I said €20 and she said, no problem. It one of my honey queen moulds that I took a prize with at the honey show so is top quality. Am I doing myself or her.

 

[dpearce4]

£6.50 per lb on ebay

 

[VEG]

if your both happy then whats the problem

 

[alanf]

£6.50 per lb on ebay

Trading in your wax at Th0rnes - 2.5 pounds of wax plus £2.50 would be 20 sheets of BS deep wired at their catalogue rate of 8 sheets per pound. Buying standard foundation would cost £18.00 at the 10 sheet rate. Trading is therefore worth £15.50 for 2.5 pounds or £12.40 per 2 pounds. Other sizes and thickness, wired or not, are likely to be around the same rate. If wax is clean and top quality, £20 seems reasonable.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Buying standard foundation would cost £18.00 at the 10 sheet rate.

Or £10.74 per ten sheets of premier foundation, which is what you normally get for wax conversion... £21.48

And just looking.... Maisemore foundation and conversion rates are much cheaper.

 

[alanf]

Or £10.74 per ten sheets of premier foundation, which is what you normally get for wax conversion... £21.48 And just looking.... Maisemore foundation and conversion rates are much cheaper.

The wording in the 2013 catalogue is

"The Conversion system provides for a lb. per lb. exchange of crude wax into refined foundation. The beekeeper pays for this on a per lb. rate to which we add a wiring charge if necessary.
The Straight Swap is exactly as it sounds. You provide the wax and we swap it for Premier Foundation, wired or unwired and No Cash Changes Hands."

Not doubting what you say, but if they always provide the more costly Premium foundation for Conversion as well as Straight Swap, why not make it explicit? It's the same wording in 2012 by the way.

If it is always premium foundation then £21.75 - £2.50 = £19.25 for 2.5 lbs or £15.40 for 2 lbs. An unscrupulous person might buy in wax at prices lower than that to trade in - and there's at least one auction listing of a pound of wax at £6 per pound including post.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I have no idea what they do for straight swap, Alan, only ever had paid for conversion, did that for many years and it was premier foundation, although i did the conversion through one of their agents...not done it with them for a while, as more expensive, so maybe it has changed now.

Lots of difference in prices.

Conversion rate for 300kg of wax with Maisemore is £462
........................................................Thornes £594

500 sheets wired premier foundation Maisemore £343
Thornes £481

I think it was Chris B who worked out a couple of years ago that it would be cheaper to buy the blocks of wax sold by some of the suppliers, and trade it straight back to them for foundation, via the conversion, rather than just buy the foundation direct.

Natural beeswax.....500g ........... £4.42
" " " " " " .....10kg ........... £79.68
certified organic beeswax...500g....£8.82

 

[For want of a better word]

£1.35 per 35g light yellow pure Cornish beeswax in beautiful hexagonal blocks... would probably knock competition for a six... but I do not ever go in for such elitism!

£49 per kilo...

along with our honey .....selling out all we can make and carry at Christmas markets !

 

[DontWorryBeeHappy]

Fair play to Chris B, I love it when someone uses their smarts to beat the system ;-)

 

[For want of a better word]

Fair play to Chris B, I love it when someone uses their smarts to beat the system ;-)

as with all financial transactions, cost need to be added.

Did exactly that calculation a few years back..... and guess what?
add time Free?
Petrol /postage/wrapping etc.... then cost of road tax servicing interest on loan?

Now if you are a pensioner and lived on a bus route that passed the door of these establishments, and someone delivered the wax to you gratis and for free... then and only the??????

Top bar hives suddenly seem appealing!

 

[Hivemaker.]

Now if you are a pensioner and lived on a bus route that passed the door of these establishments, and someone delivered the wax to you gratis and for free...

They already have the wax, and delivery is free.

 

[Tom Bick]

Top bar hives suddenly seem appealing!

Better still just go foundationless this way a quids in.

 

[Finman]

If wax is clean and top quality, £20 seems reasonable.

HOW!!!

Printed foundations are £ 10/kg

.

 

[Finman]

Better still just go foundationless this way a quids in.

One box of Langstroth has 1.0 kg Foundation wax.

One wax kilo needs 6-8 kg honey to be made by bees.

And what is the price of wax kilo then as honey. It is £5 x7 kg honey = £ 35

With 35 pound you get 3 kilos foundations. That is the value of "free combs"

 

[Tom Bick]

One box of Langstroth has 1.0 kg Foundation wax.

One wax kilo needs 6-8 kg honey to be made by bees.

And what is the price of wax kilo then as honey. It is £5 x7 kg honey = £ 35

With 35 pound you get 3 kilos foundations. That is the value of "free combs"

How much honey is needed to mould foundation into comb?

 

[Finman]

How much honey is needed to mould foundation into comb?

A langstroth Foundation has wax 100 g.
Then to draw combs ready bees need 100 g more wax, and they need 700 g honey to do that.

It was researched in Cánada, how much it affects to the honey yield if you have. The research was in commercial scale and lasted 3 years.

1) frames with starting strips
2) foundations
3) ready combs

for the bee packages when they started the season.

in 10 frame Langstroth box colony needed needed 15 kg honey to draw strips to capped combs.
With foundations yield loss was about 7 kg compared to ready combs.

In debating with nature comb lovers they deny this everything and they say that natural combs do not spend honey... It is against all what we know about bee biology.


For example if a beekeeper crush and strain hives yield, he looses same amount of honey when bees draw next year again the combs.

.
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/fdnvsdrawn.htm

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Thanks Finman - that explains a lot. I started beekeeping this summer with a swarm at the beginning of June. All the equipment was new and of course there was new foundation in the 14x12 frames. The colony built up well, drew all of the comb but produced no honey. I was disappointed because a lady 10 miles away who started within a week of me had honey this year but she had bought a nuc, presumably with drawn comb.

I put a super on in middle July but although some bees could be seen moving around in the super, they did not draw the foundation. I guess the main flow had finished and there was not enough spare nectar around to convert to wax in order to draw out the comb.

The Alberta research suggests that any amount of wax production in a hive will affect honey production and I suppose that should be blindingly obvious but until I saw the figures from Finman's quoted research, I had not realised the extent of honey loss when working with foundation.

CVB

 

[alanf]

HOW!!!

Printed foundations are £ 10/kg

.

Unfortunately also expensive to post from Finland. The largest supplier here sells "premier" range wax at 9.92 GBP for 10 "National" brood size sheets, unwired and weighing around 1.25 lbs (pounds). In round numbers that's about £17.50 per kg. There are cheaper sources but that's the benchmark.

 

[Finman]

Thanks Finman - that explains a lot. I started beekeeping this summer with a swarm at the beginning of June.
CVB

When I started beekeeping long time ago, I bought swarms and I joined them to get 2 langstroth boxes occupied with bees. That size colony was able to make 40 kg honey and draw 3 boxes foundations. Of course they need pastures where exist lots of nectar flowers, and no other beekeepers.

I mean, that if started with small colony, it is not able to store honey and rear good amount of brood.

But even my hives are not all in good pastures. Often I get nothing from certain landscapes. It depends where I succeed to put the hives. Scenery lies often, how good they are.
.

 

[Finman]

. I was disappointed because a lady 10 miles away who started within a week CVB

Yes, I have lots of good examples how timing affects on yield.

- I had 3 big hives in one site. 2 hives brought boath 70 kg honey from rasberry, but third had swarming fewer, and it stopped working almost totally.

- 3 summers ago I had hives on woodland pastures. One hive brought 200 kg and 2 other hives one mile away got only 30kg each.
What happened, I do not know. At least the distance was very good to that big yield hive and another two must fly too far and consumed the yield in their travelling.

The form of flying tells, how well they get nectar. If pastures are very near, ball ees come with heavy load and fly into the hive with fresh energy.

If nectar source is too far, bees return to hive with slim belly.

But what ever, too small colony (one box) will be full in few days and it must stop productive working. Then it try to swarm. That happens easily on rape field.

When swarm lives in their new home 3 weeks, they have lost 50% of their bees, and new bees have not emerged.

.
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