putting wax on your equipment - intentionally

[McGoo]

Have you or have you heard of beeks putting wax all over their equipment so it smells like bees and keeps the bees calmer?  Is this commonplace?  My son met a beek near where he lives in Plymouth, CA, and this guy is the local 'swarm-catcher' and he coats all of his equipment with wax.   Just wondering.  thanks

[doak]

I recently built two long boxes. Sides and ends from existing boxes. New wood for the top and bottom.
I sprinkled capping s on and took the hand torch to them. This was new wood, never weathered a bit. I don't know if it had an affect. I never did this to a new factory hive. :)doak

[Bee Happy]

I melted some wax on a plywood hive lid to make it rainproof. -the way I did it took a lot more time than just painting it with latex though. - it worked out ok, the rain beads on it - it should, I thought it would never stop sucking up wax.

[Hemlock]

I wax Plasticell frames before I put them in when I'm trading out old frames.  And once when the bees did not wax the inside of the Top Telescoping cover for a year.  So I did it for them.  Typically bees will wax everything on there own.  With the Plasticell I'm trying to improve acceptance.

I have no idea whether or not it calms them any...

[Michael Bush]

>Have you or have you heard of beeks putting wax all over their equipment so it smells like bees and keeps the bees calmer?

I think it does, but mostly I do it as a preservative:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesdipping.htm