beeswax

[gnmontey]

Mine has all the crud in the bottom 1/4 inch.

My first extraction pass looked like that.



I re-melted it in the microwave and strained it through a nylon stocking. Came out nice and clean.

"The challenge of retirement is how to spend time without spending money." I hear you on that one!!!!

M

 

[trevj]

I actually built a bucket boiler for processing wax, along with a solar melter.

Both used water in the mix. The bucket used it to separate the honey and husks, the solar melter had a tub half full of water under the outlet to catch the honey and wax that ran out .

The bucket was a cleaned out steel paint bucket with a kettle element through the side, a few inches up. I would add cappings and random trimmings from my hives until the bucket was near full, then pour in a bunch of water to top off, plug it in and put a cover on it until the whole thing came to a boil. The honey and bee parts, etc., would either be dissolved in the water or become waterlogged and sink to the bottom of the bucket. The wax floated on the top.

Once the bucket cooled off, usually overnight, I would pick out the disk of wax, scrape any random crappy stuff off the bottom side of it with a sharp tool, and set it on the pile, until I either wished to knock it down or sell it in bulk.
The random crappy stuff went into the bucket for the next run, after the water and other goo was dumped.

Take-out food containers, the aluminum ones with the lids from the grocery store, work really well for making was bricks to sell.

An old electric frying pan, or a slow cooker, either pretty easy to find at a garage sale, will work too.

Cheers
Trev

 

[C-7.62x51]

What is beeswax used for? Was going to start keeping this year, and have never heard of a gun-related application. Very cool to hear, though. Thx

I use it as a major component for keeping snow and ice off my dogs feet in winter. Works great.
C.

 

[gnmontey]

I actually built a bucket boiler for processing wax, along with a solar melter.

Need some pics. Not quite following what you have going there.

For the initial extraction, I just put the cappings into a pot of water and brought it all to a boil. Once cooled I picked out the wax disk that was floating on top of the water(and other stuff), melted it in the microwave and strained the dirty liquid wax through a nylon stocking. Came out rather well in the end.

M

 

[trevj]

Need some pics. Not quite following what you have going there.

For the initial extraction, I just put the cappings into a pot of water and brought it all to a boil. Once cooled I picked out the wax disk that was floating on top of the water(and other stuff), melted it in the microwave and strained the dirty liquid wax through a nylon stocking. Came out rather well in the end.

M

My bucket was a 20 Lit./5 Gal. metal paint bucket that was cleaned out.

I punched a hole and mounted a element from an electric kettle, about 4 inches from the bottom.

The Kettle had a cord that fit the element.

And I used a slab of blue styrofoam insulation to cover it and keep some heat in while brining the whole lot to a boil.

Pretty much the same as you were doing, on a larger scale, in the garage instead of risking the wrath if the kitchen took a wax spill. I made, essentially, a giant sized electric kettle.

The solar melter was a double glazed commercial fridge door that came from the local dump. I built a plywood box, stuck some random scraps of insulation into the bottom, and vee'd a sheet of counter top material (formica?) by heating along the bend with a torch.

It was sat on some blocks, high enough to drip out the one end, into a old bathtub half full of water. The hot wax that ran out the drain hole, cooled and floated, the honey that was crystallized in the comb went into the water.

With those rigs, I processed near to 100 full height boxes of frames, from some really bad winter-kill we had the winter before. Most of it was full of crystallized Canola honey, which the remaining hives in my yard could not have cleared out in any reasonable time.

That clearer?

Cheers
Trev

 

[gnmontey]

That clearer?

Cheers
Trev

Yup. Your kettle is my pot and your solar melter is my microwave. I hear you about the "wrath" part. I did one extraction in the kitchen and was there after delegate to the back yard as a result

We are talking a whole different scale here. My cousin keeps 3 hives. Not sure how many frames that translates to. I think he said they harvested 100 lbs of honey last year.

M

 

[trevj]

The solar melter was the best thing I built, a it allowed me to recover the majority of the clean wax from my bunged up hives.

The real advantage to it is that it only allows the wax, and any honey, to run out, as long as you can resist the urge to poke around in the works while it is melting. This spring.t usually stirs up some of the sediment, but you can always throw the wax back in for another run through.

A smaller version, scaled down to match the amount of cappings and scrapings of burr comb etc., would be a great addition to a bee keeper's kit. Pretty much start with a salvaged window and build from there. Pretty low work for decent clean wax.

I only have 4 hives right now, started with 2, lost one the first winter, then the one hive threw a half dozen swarms last year, most of which I caught and hived. I combined a couple of the weaker ones going in to winter, and had 4 out of 4 make it through. One is hella strong, the second is close behind, while the other two will grow large enough to make a decent hive to go into winter again, pretty close to the size of a new package, maybe a bit larger.

I need to scrounge up a decent sized window again...

Cheers
Trev