From: ddhess@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 03:47:29 -0000
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Clean wax for Organic Production?

>Where are the supplies going to come from?

It would be interesting to see what sort of price one could get for
bulk organic beeswax. It would probably have to be fairly high in
order to compete with the honey that would otherwise be produced if
the energy didn't go into the wax. There are a couple of answers for
meeting the demands for pesticide free bees-wax:

1) use of less foundation by those needing the wax. This would mean
something like taking a sheet of unpoisoned foundation and using it
for many starter strips instead of a single frame of foundation.
This wouldn't help with the conversion process, but it would make
pesticide free comb frames for supers which can then be extracted and
re-used, or would be excellent for cut/chunk-comb.

2) finding use for lower-quality wax. Beekeepers probably already
tend to re-use as much as possible, but if they previously had been
using only lighter wax for their foundation, they might need to use
lower quality wax from hive scrapings or the occasional brood comb
for starter strips or foundation for particular uses.

3) increasing wax harvests from organic sources. Just because an
extractor allows you to re-use a comb doesn't mean you have to. How
many sheets of foundation would come out of a single frame's worth of
wax? This would be a slow process of increasing pesticide free wax,
but could help supplement.

4) growing pesticide-free wax as a crop. Setting aside colonies to
build combs on top-bars or starter strips with the goal of maximizing
wax production. You could probably feed sugar-syrup to supplement
energy sources when a nectar flow isn't on in order to keep the wax
flowing, and always have space for the bees to be working on new comb.

These days, wax seems to be pretty much an incidental product,
something useful to do with the cappings. Until the extracted
organic honey sector stabilizes in size to where it can live off its
own cappings, there will be a role for methods like I described
above. What I'm not clear on is how pesticide residues in wax will
impact the non-organic honey community. I imagine it'll be in the
form of increasing demand for organic honey rather than changing the
behavior of the non-organic growers. It wouldn't make much sense to
put clean foundation into a dirty hive. Though any non-organically
grown brood-wax would probably be rejected by foundation makers if
the issue comes more into attention to where they start testing the
wax they're given. Maybe top-bar hives will become more popular ;)

Just some rambling and thoughts.
Enjoy!
-Don