Steel Paraffin Tank + fuel burner

01 · WHY A TANK

What you are buying is held temperature, not a container

Paraffin dipping lives inside a narrow window. Below 130 °C the paraffin does not penetrate and stays on the surface; above 180 °C it starts to break down. The useful band is 140-150 °C, and it has to be held while cold pieces go in and out. That is what justifies the 4 mm plate: the mass of the steel keeps the temperature from collapsing every time you lower in a cold brood box.

02 · THE TWO JOBS

It protects the wood, and it also disinfects

The first one is well known: at 140-150 °C, 5 to 10 minutes per piece until the bubbles stop —the sign that the wood is saturated— and a properly dipped hive lasts over 15 years against the usual 4-5 with paint. The second matters more than it looks: holding the bath at 150 °C for 10 minutes or more destroys Paenibacillus larvae spores, American foulbrood; below that temperature, or for less time, they survive. That is the reason to own a tank: woodenware has to be sanitised when the problem shows up, not when a slot opens in someone else's queue.

03 · THE WORKING DAY

Two hours to get going, so you work in batches

Bringing the tank from cold up to temperature takes an hour and a half to two hours, so you do not fire it up for one box but for a full day. Everything is stripped down first and the pieces go through one after another, draining vertically on the side rest —that is what it is for— and cooling in the air. What drips back returns to the bath, so the real consumption per hive is lower than the initial charge suggests.

04 · LINSEED OIL TOO

The tank takes both treatments

The tank also takes hot linseed oil, for anyone who prefers a finish that still shows the grain. But linseed oil feeds the wood and repels water without sealing the pore, and it has no sanitary effect: if the goal is to disinfect, the treatment is paraffin.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Two conditions that are not negotiable. The wood goes in dry, below 18 % moisture: any water left inside flashes off against paraffin at 140 °C, so store it two or three weeks under cover. And nothing plastic goes into the tank. Write to us before ordering to confirm internal dimensions and capacity: that is what decides whether your supers go in one at a time or two.