There are a couple of you tube videos using a heat gun to melt cappings.
Here is one. He actually took longer than I did on a frame. I waited a bit
longer for the gun to heat up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL7vbrJ6Pvw

The process is very quick so little heat goes to the honey. There is an air
space below the capping and the wax melts and coalesces on the edge of the
cells so the cell is open and the bees have the melted wax to build next
year.

If the wax is against the honey, which is easy to see since the cappings
are honey colored not white, then you would need to use a wax
comb/scratcher.

There is zero honey dripping so that would indicate that the honey is not
heated enough to flow at all. When I used the heat knife or scratcher, I
had honey all over the place. It was a real mess. No so with the gun.

HMF was mentioned a bit back and you would have a lot more with heated
knives than the gun, as seen by all the liquid honey when you use a knife
as well as hot honey bubbling on the knife.Again, zero with the gun and
much faster.

Simply put, it works and I am not looking back.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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