Liquid petroleum jelly 1L

Once you have a few seasons behind you, you realise that many failures in the honey house don’t come from “bad luck” but from lack of lubrication: stiff taps that end up leaking, gaskets that dry out, threads that seize up exactly on the big extraction day… and that’s where a liquid petroleum jelly designed for beekeeping work really makes the difference.

This transparent liquid petroleum jelly is a highly refined, colourless and odourless paraffin, ideal for the daily maintenance of equipment and accessories in the honey room. We use it to lubricate gaskets, taps, threads, locks and moving parts on extractors, settling tanks, ripeners, pumps, creamers and all kinds of metal or plastic connections where you want to avoid oils that can go rancid or stain.

Very important if you work with monitoring boards: this liquid petroleum jelly is not suitable for varroa monitoring on diagnostic trays. For that purpose, the stringy “vaselina filante” is a better choice. The logic is simple: the filante stays exactly where you spread it and traps the mites at the point where they fall, so you can count by areas and assess the distribution of parasitism in the brood nest. Liquid petroleum jelly will move with any slight tilt of the hive and the mites would float and shift position, so you lose that positional information. On top of that, the filante copes better with temperature changes without becoming too fluid in summer or cracking in winter, within a reasonable range.

Because it is liquid, you can apply it precisely with a brush, syringe or sprayer, and it penetrates well into threads, shafts and O-rings. It reduces wear, prevents squeaks and makes it easier to assemble and disassemble parts for cleaning, which is key when you’re racing against the clock in the middle of a nectar flow.

In day-to-day beekeeping it also has other practical uses:

• Pest control: applied on the legs of hive stands or supports, it creates a slippery barrier that makes it harder for ants and small insects to climb up. It can also be used in the trays of some Aethina tumida traps as a slick surface that holds the beetles that fall.

• Protection of equipment: spread on metal threads, hinges and latches, it helps prevent rust and stops propolis from locking things solid. It also protects rubber seals on smokers and other equipment from drying out and sticking.

• Beekeeper care: applied to wrists and ankles before putting on your suit, it can make it harder for bees to sneak in through the cuffs. It’s not a magic solution, but it adds a small extra layer of safety on days with cranky colonies.

It doesn’t form crusts, doesn’t turn sticky over time and handles the typical temperature swings of the honey room very well. Even so, it should be used with common sense: it is meant for maintenance and external applications, not as a replacement for specific greases where the manufacturer specifies another product.

It comes in a 1 litre container, a convenient size to keep on the workbench and one that will last you several seasons if you use it regularly and sparingly where it’s really needed.