You will probably think that foundation costs rather a lot of money; it does. For example, 20 sheets of wired foundation for a BS broodbox plus fifty sheets of wired BS shallow foundation would cost you £55.00. By saving your unwanted wax from melted down old combs, etc, and exchanging 8.53 lb of it, you would get your foundation for nothing. Or by presenting Thorne’s with 3.93lb lb. of wax plus £14.45 you would get the foundation for a discount of 74%.
This arrangement applies to Thorne’s Premium grade wax only.
Similar deals are offered by other foundation suppliers.
I have been surprised more than once to discover that some beekeepers of many years standing do not know about this. of this way of getting your foundation for nothing, or at a discount of at least 70%.
In general, depending on the exact wax order, discounts of between 70% and 85% are obtained with the wax plus cash arrangement, and of course the foundation is free with the ‘straight swap’ system, but in this case, you need to trade in about twice as much wax as for the ‘cash plus wax system’.
When trading in wax, it does not need to be pristine, just reasonably clean as from a solar extractor.
See Thorne’s current catalogue for the full details.
Geoff Cooper