I am getting a sopilka (Ukrainian flute) made from an unfinished wood. It will be treated by the maker with some bees wax.
What is the best way to continue taking care of it? Would something like Butcher Block conditioner http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=20386 work?

The general rule is "Ask the Maker". But, if he's treating it with beeswax, I am guessing that his advice would be to do nothing to it, except to swab it out carefully after playing. Anyway, see what he says.

Out of interest, what type of wood is it?

It is oak.

Oak! Blimey. I didn't know you could make flutes out of oak. I always rather fancied something made out of oak that I could blow, but I'd been told that it splits too easily.

Definitely ask the maker, then. I wouldn't know what to do with oak. I bet it's gorgeous, when it arrives. Please post pictures when you get it.

I just found out from the maker that it is ash, not oak. I will post pictures when it comes (hopefully in another couple of weeks).

I saw a couple of fine Moldavian fluyers - actually identical to whistle - made of oak. They played very nicely.

Ukrainian sopilkas here (Kiev region) are made mostly of fruit trees wood - apple, pear & apricot wood.

My sopilka came today. It is made of ash, not oak and plays beautifully. Custom made, and has a name "Ziron'ka", which translates from Ukrainian into "Little Star". It is 41 cm long with 2 cm bore. When I practice a bit more, I hope to post a sound clip.



The wood on the second picture is the correct color. I took pictures indoors, and the camera plaid tricks on me.

Cameras can do that. They always do that whenever they're looking at me. They just can't resist.

Great - this is unusual form of sopilka to me, the ones I'm used to see here look like this.

The wood on the first pic looks like oak, on the second - like ash:).

My soprano sopilka looks like the one on your picture-link. "Ziron'ka" was made by Vitaliy Yanov from Sumy (Ukraine). Most of his sopilkas follow this design. This sopilka is Alto, and he made finger holes for me smaller than usual (my fingers are not large enough for the regular Alto holes

I'll try to take a better picture using natural light sometime soon. The sound this simple instrument makes is incredible: no comparison to my "mass produced" soprano sopilka.