Nov 2011 - Kearsarge Beekeepers Association

Kearsarge Beekeepers
Association
Nov./Dec. 2011
www.kbanh.org
Volume VIII Issue 6
Business Meeting Minutes then More on Marklin’s
Next Page:
About 25 KBA members held the September
meeting inside the candle making area.
At the meeting in November, a Nomination Panel
will be formed to bring forth candidates for elections
which will follow in January.
Mary, as Treasurer, reported we currently have
enough money to pay for a speaker at the winter
meeting and anyone with a suggestion for speaker
should forward the name to an officer (Troy Hall,
Bob Naylor, Mary Lloyd-Evans, Robin Gray or
Gayle).
The next meeting of the NH State Beekeepers is
October 22nd 9am-3pm (doors open at 8:30am)
at Wasserman Park in Merrimack, NH. A
researcher in bee nutrition will be the
speaker. Must pre-register for a meal by Oct. 17th,
Go to the website for the form:
www.nhbeekeepers.org. Recommendations for
speakers at the Spring State Meeting are welcome.
Contact an officer if you are interested in more
information about the NH State Beekeepers Assoc. or
see their website.
The NH State Beekeepers hold a liability insurance
policy which costs just under $1000 and they invite
club donations to support that. Discussion indicated
our club will continue to donate, and will formally
make the motion at the November meeting.
It was the concensus that honey production is about
over for the year, and honey consumption by the
hives during the rainy weather was appreciable. Club
members said they have taken a few lbs. of honey to
as much as 1200 pounds this season. Feeding has
begun in some bee yards intentionally or
unintentionally as in Peter's hummingbird feeder that
the bees raided. Troy suggested 1/2" hardware
cloth cut to length of the hive entrance and folded
Dues for 2011 are $15.00. Martin and
over to a free-standing shape will keep mice out,
Christine
Mail to:
with timing recommendations varying from Sept. 1
Marklin have a
Mary Lloyd-Evans
to at least by first frost. He also said he has a target
50,000 sq. ft.
PO Box 88
weight of 150 lbs. for a hive with 2 deep supers and
building in
Andover, NH 03231
one medium full of honey on top, with the bees
Contoocook
now consolidating themselves for overwintering.
that houses a
During the business meeting, we were served
woodworking
Newsletter
Newsletter Printed
Courtesy of Sugar River shop, a candlemaking factory and a candle decorating homemade popcorn by Anna and Simeon Marklin,
and coffee was offered. Other family members
BanK
BanK
business. They also have several rooms of unused
office space that have become storefront rooms, open include Matthias, and Judith. The Marklins also gave
Tuesday through Saturday, filled with their own and club members a 2x5 inch candle!!
Next Meeting
local artisan craftware including clothing, jewelry,
books, candles, cards.
The next meeting will be our annual Holiday
Potluck and it will be held at the East Andover
Fri. Nov. 11, 2011
Grange (same place as last year see directions on
6pm (you’re welcome to
back) on Nov. 11th. . Dinner is at 6pm though people
come at 5:30 to visit and
are invited to gather at 5:30 to visit and help set up.
set up) at the East Andover
Mary Lloyd-Evans and Peter Zac are once again
Grange
donating and preparing a turkey. Members are asked
to bring a side dish or dessert or beverage to
Officers:
complement the turkey.
President
Please RSVP to Mary and Peter (603)735-5058
Troy Hall 252-9564
or email mlloydevans@tds.net. They’d like to know
Vice President
how many are coming and the type of dish you plan
Bob Naylor 863-1136
to bring.
This is always a fun time with good food and good
Treasurer
humor and the Andover Grange is a cozy place.
Mary Lloyd-Evans
735-5058
We will have a raffle at that meeting so please
bring a raffle prize if you can. Any extra bee
Co-treasurer
products or equipment, homemade things, harvested
Robin Gray 927-4127
produce, saved seeds, or as always, re-gifts and
Secretary
miscellany are welcome. Proceeds go toward our
Gayle Bates 938-5325
postage.
Contents:
Minutes from Last Meeting
pg. 1-2 Minutes Sept. Mtg
Martha and Bob Naylor filled in for Gayle and
pg.3 Thank you’s & other recorded the last meeting at Marklin Candle Design
news
in Contoocook. Martha has written the following
pg. 4-9 pictures & articles minutes of that meeting and Bob took the pictures.
Many thanks to them for a great job!!
KBA’s newsletter is
published 6 times per year. As 2 year members of the KBA, the Marklin family
The newsletter is included in invited KBA members to see how they use beeswax.
the yearly dues for members. For special occasions they light a large (10" diameter
For a sample copy send your by 12"height?) outside candle within their
name and address to:
landscaping, and graced us with that welcome, as
Gayle Bates
well as lighting many smaller candles along the
PO Box 421
walkway.
South Sutton, NH 03273
Next Meeting:
The Marklin candle adventure began in 1985 when Martin, in the
seminary studying to be a priest, thrust himself into the business by
stepping in when an elderly Polish woman passed away. She had
made the church Easter candle for years and no one knew how she
had done it. Martin experimented in his parents' basement in St.
Louis, sold 6 candles to churches his first year, then 18, then 35,
then 75, then 150 and now about 1800 each year. It took him 15
years to perfect the process of removing wax from the candle
surface and pouring molten colored wax into the design grooves
and this is now a proprietary process. Competitors slapped on
decals. In 1989, he moved into a Nashua, NH barn, then to mill
buildings, and for 10 years has been in Contoocook in a former
electronics building alongside his home on 8.5 acres. They are
Only 7 companies produce church candles in the U.S. (3 in
Syracuse where German immigrants settled with the business) and
6 of them are M-K, Cathedral, Dadant, AI Root, General Wax and
Marklin.
The three methods of producing candles are molding, extruding
and over-dipping. Molding creates a very hard candle and is
difficult to carve. Overdipping has adhesion and bubble issues.
Though he began by purchasing overdipped candles, Marklin now
uses his own molded candles which are then over-dipped, giving
the outer 1/8" a softer, more workable surface to carve. He adds no
scent or color to his wax candle, except for the obvious art design
colors, and utilizes the wax's natural fragrance of citrus,
wildflowers, etc, depending on where the wax comes from. Other
companies (Yankee Candles) sell paraffin candles with added color
and fragrance.
Marklin's buys 30,000 pounds of wax annually, 10,000 lbs at a
time through an established supplier who gets his wax from all
over the world. Marklin can buy in slab or pellets and prefers
pellets. The price of wax is directly related to the honey supply,
with apiaries keeping their hives (and wax) during shortages of
honey. Marklin is very selective, and considers the wax melting
point, ester value, saponification, hardness, etc. A typical hive has
2-3 lbs of wax.
Equatorial countries are said to have the best wax for bleaching.
Wax can be dark to light yellow, with white, and the ivory desired
by churches, created by bleaching. Formerly, slabs of wax were
laid in the sun to bleach, with a lot of beeswax refineries located on
Long Island because Manhattan property was too expensive. Now
with LI property so expensive, chemical bleaching is used.
Marklin has fabricated and reused many things in his industry,
such as a restaurant kettle, a naval battleship kettle, keilbasa tanks,
and vodka distillery pipes. All equipment is stainless steel as
currently the "smallest, youngest and best candle-making company copper or brass would tinge things green.
in the U.S." He is able to compete based on his direct market
Production only allows for molding one tank per day and
approach, using no middleman. The church has an established
unmolding one per day, by hand. It takes about 1 hour per inch of
policy of supporting the arts, which helps in the fine craft business diameter to mold a candle. He dips half the candle, then turns it
of Marklin's candle making.
over and dips the other half to create even diameter candles, top to
bottom, and uses a sizer to make things uniform. Marklin offers
Martin currently works with another employee in the woodworking 25 sizes, 28 designs, 2 colors and custom orders.
shop which produces altars and other pieces of church furniture
except pews.
Overall, the company employs 25 people and provides 1/2 of the
cathedrals in the U.S. with candles, with Catholic and Episcopalian
using the most. Marklin adheres to the former rule (as determined
by local Bishops) that candles must be 50% beeswax and produces
candles that are 51% select, high quality beeswax. Parafin, an oilbased product, at about $1/lb. compared to $4/lb. for beeswax,
makes up the rest of the candle. 100% beeswax candles are
difficult to mold and hard to carve, and buyers won't pay the extra
expense for them. Candles make up about 20% of wax
consumption, with pharmaceuticals/coating on pills, and beauty
products using the other 80%. Candles are 20% of the paraffin
market, with coatings of produce, waxed Oriented Strand Board in
the lumber industry, tires-with 1 lb of paraffin in every tire- using
the other 80%.
With wax having a high coefficient of expansion and contraction,
dipped candles can pull the wick off center. All the other
companies now extrude their candles (pressing pellets together.)
Paraffin candles need flat braid wicks; beeswax candles need
square braid wicks. The diameter of the candle determines the size
of the wick needed. An orange, robust flame with no black smoke
is what is desired. If black smoke is seen, it indicates an inefficient
burn and the wick needs to be cut. Underwicking is indicated by a
solid ring of wax around the burn; overwicking produces a drip.
Marklin slightly overwicks so there is a tiny bit of black smoke,
but you can always see the burning flame (never hidden by a solid
core of wax around it.)
Candle decorating takes a year to train a good decorator. The
decorator carves out the pattern and fills in with colored wax on a
horizontal candle, only 20-30% of the surface of the design at a
time, to keep the wax from running down the sides of the candle.
A good decorator can fuse each segment of color to the old, almost
cool segment previously done, with little or no 'seam' between the
segments. Decorations include 22 carat gold, sterling silver, and
different textures including a hammered look. Pigments are more
colorfast but clog the capillaries in the wick. Aniline is not
colorfast and will fade in sunlight/windows.
70% of Marklin's business is done in the 3 months before Easter,
and no decorating is done before an order is placed. Long hours
require encouragement, exemplified by his BIOB banner, short for
Bring It On Baby, as no order is turned away. He offers a buyback program for unused portions of his candles at $2.50/lb.
Learning from his good friend, Simon Pearce and his
personalization of glass-blowing marks, Marklin has applied for a
patent for 'tradedress' which indicates the look and feel of a
specialty commodity. Instead of cutting off the extra wick that is
used to hang the candles during production, he now utilizes that
extra wick, and the knot he ties to hang the candles, with a wax
seal as an indication of hand-dipped candles.
Although churches are the more common buyers for his candles, he
also has made them for South West Airlines, Boston College,
marriage candles, an indian reservation in Montana recently, and
other private uses. A 5" candle, the largest hand-dipped in the
U.S. may sell for $1400. Shipping costs to Guam adds $1200.
The End
********************************
Thank You’s to:
The Marklin Family for their hospitality and generosity and giving
us the opportunity to see how their beautiful craft is done
Martha and Bob Naylor for the reporting and photos of the Marklin
tour and Sept. mtg.
Those members who sent articles, recipes etc…
The Big “E”
By the time this newsletter reaches you the Eastern States Expo
("The Big E") will have passed for this year but there are some
good things to know for next year. The expo has a NH state
building with a booth manned by members of NH bee clubs.
Anyone willing to help out at the booth earns a fun time; all the
Blueberry Pie, Ice Cream and Cheddar Cheese Soup in a bread
bowl they can eat, as well as free admission to the fair and free
parking. They like to have up to 20 people staffing the booth with
2.5 hour shifts, then 4 hours off. The booth earns $700-$900
which is prorated among the clubs who help cover the booth. The
fair is generally the last 2 weeks of Sept. and there is a website.
Volunteer Opportunity
The club will be looking for a secretary for 2012. It’s a great way
to learn more about beekeeping through doing the newsletter and to
help a good organization. You also get to work with some really
nice people. The nominating committee will be formed at the next
meeting so if you’re interested, please let one of them know.
Calendar
October 22nd New Hampshire Beekeepers Assoc. fall meeting
9a-3pm, doors open at 8:30am, at Wasserman Park in Merrimack,
NH. There will be a speaker on bee nutrition. Must pre-register by
Oct. 17th for a meal. Go to the website for the registration form:
www.nhbeekeepers.org.
Fri. Nov. 11th at 6pm KBA Holiday Potluck Dinner at the East
Andover Grange. Doors open at 5:30pm for set-up.