Beekeeping task that I detest

One of the things I can't stand about beekeeping is the equipment clean up.  Assembly can be boring, but cleaning out frames for new foundation is just the worse.  I was complaining talking to my bee buddy, John, about how flimsy the frame cleaner is.

My hand was so sore after just a couple of frames.  I hate to say, but my solution has been to just keep buying more frames since my bee yard keeps growing.  

John asked about my solar wax melter.  I do have one, but it's a Styrofoam cooler painted black and can't hold actual frames.  It's for crush and stain comb.  John built a wax melter that I thought was awfully big.  The kicker of this is that, if you put your frames in the wax melter, it cleans all those places that I would have to scrape with the frame cleaner.  That sold me, big or no, scrape free is too good to not do.  So now I'm waiting on the off season free shipping special. 

Solar wax melter update

The hot Georgia sun makes for quick work of cleaning my wax.

 Bag of cappings.

In the solar wax melter before melting.

Slum gum (dirt) that was left after melting.

Clean wax!

Solar wax melter

 I used a styrofoam cooler I had laying around in the garage, painted it black and put a piece of plexiglas on the top.  Inside is a large glass bowl with about 2 inches of water on the bottom, a piece of hardware cloth to hold the paper towel over the bowl and then the paper towel.  Then I add the wax capping that have been cleaned by the bees and then rinsed.