I am a Bookbinder & Leatherworker. and we use beeswax for conditioning linen & cotton thread before sewing. The wax derived from cappings is regarded as the highest quality. The fact that most of your wax candle came from cappings may partly account for the difference in colour between your candle and the other one at the end. Capping wax is usually brighter and clearer like yours.
@@fysics5375 they just like forcefully projecting faith anywhere they can, nothing that turns me off of it more, if god allows such a free will stop telling me how to live my life
My grandie and grannie had a rural farm and grandie kept about 2 dozen hives situated at various spots around the farm. Near each hive he would plant different scented flowers, all around the hedgerows, climbing up the barns and storage sheds, the haystack and milking parlor. Grannie used to make scented candles to sell in their farm shop, and some of the flowers were permanent, like the clematis, rhododendron, honeysuckle, gardinia and jasmine. While others were planted as experiments or because that's what grannie said she wanted, so grandie did as he was told - things like phlox, mock orange, iris, sweat pea and lilac. She also used to sell embroidered scent sachets for drawers and wardrobes from the petals of the dried flowers, with the sewn flower on the bag matching the scent. But grannies pride and joy was her rose garden outside her kitchen window, and the wax from the rose hive was only used for their house. She would stand at the sink, watching the bees in the sunshine, flit from one flower to the next, getting duster and more yellow. These bees🐝 made the best beeswax, sweetest smelling candles, and those candles were only ever used in their bedroom. Grannie once said it helped to keep the romance alive and well (with a smile and a wink) - she was 68 at the time and I blushed I was so embarrassed ! She stood there laughing at how red faced I got, telling grandie when he came back for tea, and he bust a gut laughing as well. They were married for 76 years and got married when grandie was 18, and grannie 16. They were each others first, last, and only love and died within 2 days of each other. They were buried together, next to each other, side by side. Sorry about the ramble, but watching this video, seeing you making the beeswax brought back so many happy memories, especially Sundays - church and then all the 3 sons and 2 daughters families (12 adults & 17 children) went there for a Sunday roast lunch, and then sandwiches, salad, and grannies home made cakes and pies for tea about 6 hours later. Her cooking was amazing, and her home always smelled of fresh bread, cakes baking, tea, roast meat, scented flowers, and old waxed furniture. Thanks for making those wonderful forgotten memories come alive again.
@@boogs7190 I am from St.Helens, formerly in the County of Lancashire, now Merseyside, in England. It is situated half way between Liverpool and Manchester. It was originally a coal mining town, with a lot of farms outside of the main centre, most of them agricultural, with some all dairy, but most just had between around 6 to a dozen cows or so for milk, butter & cheese production, which was for home use, and given to family, with the rest sold in the farm shop or at the weekly farmers market, held in the town center so people could get fresh vegetables and such and it was cheaper than the shops. As for being called Grandie, I was just brought up being told to call him that - "Go to your Grandie", or "Go and help Grandie bring the vegetables from the cart". I never thought about it before as its a common word for Grandad or Grandpa around here. I hope this helps you.
A fun fact: the original wax that bees produce from their glands is clear and looks like ice flakes. But as they use it with their mouths it gets mixed with whatever else they're chewing on like pollen, honey or plant sap. So basically the fresher the wax is the less colour and smell it has.
In the future, when you are letting the beeswax/slop mix cool, use (if you have it) a slightly deeper container and fasten a piece of clean window screen across the top, thereby keeping wayward bees from doing a kamikaze dive into the cooling wax.
I came to make the same comment. I'm no beekeeper, but I save dozens of bees a year from my pool. And that's not even the part of me that feels like you should always cover certain arts or products, especially something that's drying.
regarding your wife's baking pans - when you said "there's quite a bit at stake right now" I literally busted out laughing - your sense of humor is divine and this is hands down one of the coolest videos I've seen in a long time!
Small tip for parchment paper so it doesn't try to fly off on its own and fit molds better. Crinkle it all up and smash it into a ball. Get as much fine webfold lines in it, and you'll be able to shape it very easily to fit molds and other shapes. This has come in use for me for cooking and other kitchen stuff but I can't see why it would apply in helping you in make some nice, square beeswax cakes.
As an ex-beekeeper, I agree that beekeeping is a great hobby. We never made that much honey - about 12 gallons/year, which we usually just gave away to our fellow church members !!
As a kid, one of the customers on my paper route paid me with honey. This got me interested in keeping bees. Also it became something for me to do with my father. He was one of the hardest working people I have ever known. Bee keeping was relaxing for him. I did any of the heavy lifting, moving hives to different orchards. The delicate flavour differences of the honeys was always a great addition to the hobby. I also began making mead from some of the honey we harvested. My sister also used some in her cake baking business.
I was given perhaps 30 Lbs of dirty wax from a friends late fathers hives I cleaned it up like you did ,what i found was to use silicon cooking molds to pour it into ,it pops out of them nicely . then you can remelt them for what ever you need. great video !
I second that. I picked up several from second hand/thrift stores and pour my rendered wax into them as the moulds produce clean shaped medallions of wax ready to use for other projects.
That's exactly how I clean up aluminum when I melt it for foundry projects, I use thrifted stainless steel muffin tins and make ingots out of them so I can just use them for whatever later.
silicone chocolate molds sound quite good tbh. make it not too thick and u have perfect beeswax chocolate bars that u can portion pretty well or make granulate like straining it through cold water
Literally never done anything with beekeeping or wax making or watched any videos about either of them, don’t know how I’ve ended up here but it was very enjoyable
Couple of ideas, maple syrup finishing filters are washable and reusable. Even after filtering maple syrup that is 219 degrees. Might be helpful, especially with the strong loops attached that you can thread a stick or more through to hold it up. Maybe put some screen over the wax while it cools to keep the bee 🐝 off. Either way if I were doing what you are I’d invest $19 in 12 maple syrup finishing filters. Totally worth it!! 👍🏼
I have to be honest say, that was probably one of of the most unexpectedly interesting videos I have seen in quite a while. Definite wow moment at the end, I take my hat off to you in what you are producing, and in fact recycling, from naturally occurring goodness.
As someone who used to reclaim wax as a hobby, I think you're putting a few extra and unneeded steps into this - the cocoons and whatnot will usually float in the water level and not embed itself into the wax very much. Basically you need to get the water up to the point where the wax liquefies. After it's become a soup from hell just kill the heat and cover it. There's enough thermal mass in the water to keep it warm for a while and the time will help it settle into layers - wax at the top, cocoons, other filth that floats in water, and hell broth. Once it's cold, you can take the puck of wax out and scrape the filth from the bottom. Boiling is a bit of overkill, and boiling it for 10 minutes past it all being melted will only have the benefit of killing off any pathogens (which isn't usually a concern if you're making wax for candles).
@@maxhay9098 (Because sometimes people get function-locked) it also works on parchment paper, and the edges of paper bags you want to roll down without tearing.
The most beautiful part of this video for me was seeing that glorious amber gold pour from the bucket into those cake pans. Beeswax is such an amazing substance. So versatile in it's applications.
This is very interesting to watch and learn from. My father would take 50/50 mix bees wax and mutton tallow and melt and mix together and water proof all kinds of leather and canvas. I have never found anything as good as will, I do quite a lot of leather work and use bees wax for several things. Very good video
I use 1 part mutton tallow, 1 part paraffin, 1/2 part beeswax for Civil War bullet and wad lube. Also use commercial orange oil and beeswax for antique furniture polish and rejuvenation.
my process is a bit simpler: 1. use more water on first round, just heat remove some of the floating junk with a small strainer and let cool. (no messy pour into through filter) all the heavy stuff will settle and you have a pretty clean cake without mess 2. melt just the wax again and pour through stocking or fine filter 3. mix with water again (this will filter out any additional minor water soluble or heavier than water contaminants), heat and then let cool again. => you will end up with a very clean floating cake with less effort, 1 pour instead of 3, less containers/materials needed (just 2 pots)
Kaylee from the honeystead does it that way. She uses a dedicated crock pot for the purpose. I like viewing different methods so if I ever get a chance to do it myself I don't feel lost
Next time I'm at a farmers market I will most definitely buy beeswax candles. This was an amazing adventure you took me on. Thanks for all you do for your beautiful bees. I've never had such an appreciation for beekeepers and their hives...
Silicone pans in the oven with capping suspended over it in cheesecloth. Low heat, just enough to melt the wax. The cheesecloth will filter the wax and honey from debris The wax will solidify on top, the pasteurized honey will sink to the bottom. The pasteurized honey can be reserved for cooking or return to the bees. The wax cakes can then be washed, then cleaned in water, and reheated in a silicone pan in water until the wax runs clear. Once the wax rubs clear, remove it from the water and melt pieces of beeswax (in the oven) into smaller silicone pans of a desired shape. You can make candles this way, too, just add a wick. Suuuuuper easy, clean, and little cleanup. No buckets, no dead bees, no outdoor Turkey fliers, the waste is only in the cheesecloth, which once washed out might even be able to be reused-depending on how ambitious you are. Works great☀️ Love these videos!!
You could really use a small screened in structure to work your honey and wax. I've worked with bees a lot when I was young, but never processed the wax. Good video.
Good job. For safety, you don't need that much water, just a few inches in the bottom is enough. All you're trying to do is let the slum separate from the wax. Secondly, you don't need to get to boiling, which is also a safety concern. The wax will melt at about 75c which is 167f since it seems like you're in the USA, I did the math.
Bees wax melts between 144 and 147F (or 62-64c) according to other sources. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeswax "Beeswax has a relatively low melting point range of 62 to 64 °C (144 to 147 °F). If beeswax is heated above 85 °C (185 °F) discoloration occurs. The flash point of beeswax is 204.4 °C (400 °F)."
Doesn’t boiling it help with killing any pathogens? It’s probably not necessary, but with it starting with such dirty slop, I think it would make me feel better.
lovely video! baking tip: crumple up the wax paper into a ball and then uncrumple it before lining your baking sheets with it. fits the form of any baking sheet better and doesn't affect the performance any.
I will never ever do this, I have no interest in keeping bees but I am fascinated by this video and it is the most satisfying thing ive seen in a while
Thank you for a very interesting video. Bees wax is one of the most important items I possess. It warerproofs wood, works well to lubricate drawyer slides, keeps aluminum from building up on your sanding disks. keeps your table saw blade cool when cutting aluminum plate metal, and a little bit last a long time.
I have been using the sun to melt the wax in a 2x2ft 8" deep stainless pan with a drain and double pane glass over it. Tilting the pan slightly allows only the clean wax to run into a catch pan. I just set it up and walk away. As the sun moves I need to adjust it a few times during the day. I will add more bee debris to the pan every day till everything is done. Thanks for sharing your method.
Back In the '80s & '90s, I used solar heat too, but being probably a bit cooler where I am, I made a simple framed box wrapped with 3" thick polystyrene foam sheet panels and with a hinged double glazing panel lid. All was propped up and sloped to face the sun. A layered fine zinc fly screen tray on top to dump the raw material and to catch the larger debris, a double fine cloth filter supported by mesh below it and under that was a bit of aluminum sheet bent to funnel the liquid wax to a collector pot. Most of the 'internals' were Aluminum sheet [old caravan body] and sprayed with stove black paint. All sounds a bit complicated, but in truth was all cobbled together from scrap, but worked very well indeed. There was so little work involved, I would buy wax cappings and hive debris wax quite cheaply from other local bee keepers who didn't want the hassle or were just too busy. The resulting wax was very clean and sold for a fair bit of a premium back then. In these days of global trade, wax seems to have become much cheaper in real terms, than it used to be - or is that just my imagination ?
Excellent video for those unfamiliar with the rendering process. For the darker wax you can run the melted wax through large coffee filters using a pot, a colander, and coffee filter. Place the setup in a warm (100°) oven and let the wax drip down into the pot. Use a fresh coffee filter each time you refill the colander. The used filters make great fire starters and the filtered wax is a beautiful light gold color, perfect for candles. That said, unless you’re set up to render wax in large quantities, it’s easier, and cheaper, to just buy clean wax from a commercial source.
I really enjoyed watching your video. My grandson watched it with me & now he wants to raise bees to make his own wax! He's only 7, so maybe in a few years. :)
Not sure if it's a significant issue, but if you want to help keep the bees out of the product as it cools without putting a lid on it, you could get some fine mesh sieves (probably as a flat sheet due to the various containers) and it will keep the bees and any debris out of the cooling product.
I love how the bees just randomly take their turns on video. I live in Kansas, and now I have to go see what color the beeswax from around here is. I am SO enjoying watching your channel!
I make a lot of metal sculptures and do blacksmithing. I love using beeswax on some of my more traditional pieces or anything that will touch food as a metal finish. It protects the metal from rusting and gives it a very traditional look, compared to painting it with a clearcoat, for example.
My father is doing the bee-thing as well and very interesting to see the differences in how you organize your bees and process the wax, honey, bees etc...from the other end of the world! Anyway, the wax looks similar and i know what you mean with the smell and the color of it. I use wax in my wood-workshop and I make my own finishing products out of it. Beeswax may not be the long lasting finishing for wood but the best smelling and most enjoyable to apply. So I'm happy to have my own short-way supply chain for beeswax as you are showing. Sometimes I help in processing the wax as well which gives a deeper understanding of it - which is good for further use. For sure, just buying was isn't more expensive but having the whole process in mind, knowing where it is coming from, etc... is priceless.
I have refiled wax for quite some time as hobbie, and in my experience the best material to filter it is 100% cotton coth, you loose a little of wax, but the result is wonderfuly pure. and you gain some waxed cloth too, very useful for a lot of things, from waxing wood tofire starters
I love how cross compatible all the skills involved in the more down to earth processes have. Because I saw your method for cleaning the beeswax and filtering it and my brain immediately went - hey that's also how you harvest/clean tallow! Right down to the tallow/wax cake forming as it cools above the impurity filled water Amazing to watch the process and if I wasn't frightened of getting stung, I would be adding beehives to the list of things I would love to have in a property
I was thinking the same thing, but for the chemistry classes I took in college! Especially organic chemistry lab, which was a lot of filtration and separation of different substances from mixtures.
I’ve built a solar wax melter for my cappings. It cleans most particles from the wax. If using the wax for candle making it will have to be remelted and filtered. I also use pantyhose for the final filter. You can pour the wax straight into your pans and place them in the freezer for a couple of hours and the wax block will pop right out the pan and not leave any residue on the pan.
When I lived near my grandma, she had three hives. She makes the candles and sells them all by herself. She also sold the honey. I fondly remember standing in her old kitchen and uncapping wax combs, spinning out the honey and then cutting up the comb. She would melt it in a big metal pan on the stove to purify it.
A very interesting and well-made video Wes. I never thought about the wax but I love honey and have eaten many different types and it does vary by the plant type they get their nectar from. So I would imagine the wax is the same way. Thanks for sharing.
My mother found a jar of honey in a special foods store up in new york city. It was labeled Leatherwood Honey. Imported of course. It had a very interesting flavor. She loved it. Me .... not so much. 😝
I guess you know, that if you save a chunk of the wax for your shop, every rusty bolt and nut when heated up just apply a little of that wax on the piece and let it melt into the threads. You just found the best of the best penetrating oil there is.
Thanks for sharing this, i do something similar at present. I plan to make a Solar Wax Melter as i think is not as messy. I made a porotype this year and it worked reasonable well for me in Ireland (where it doesn't get that hot) I will refine it and plan to make a video for my channel
Alex, here is a difference between bees and wasps. Wasps are aggressive, for no reason they will fly to you to sting you. Bees are not aggressive. It’s like they are busy looking for pollen, loving life etc and aren’t looking for someone to sting for no reason like a wasp. It’s kind of hard to believe but it’s like some people just look for trouble and some people are friendly.
To clean up wax, bring a heat source. No known enzyme, acid, base or solvent will help you. Only heat can, besides bees that is - but bees aren't that obedient. And the last part, a small correction. You are correct in what you are saying, but it's not the whole truth. I think your wax contained more honey than the other one, which would make sense considering the honey-water solution being used. So the reason for the difference between the waxes is, I think, simply methods used to produce said waxes. Quality of the honey does affect the wax though, I'm not saying you are wrong about that.
I'm a software engineer living in one of the most densly populated urban metropoli in the world (Tokyo), but now I know how to make a candle from pure beezwax. Thank you for this very edutaining video!
the way you explain everything is easy to follow and enjoyable to watch, very cool video, now i'ma gonna go back thru and see what other interesting things you've gotten up to. awesome job sir. you did a real good job explaining everything in detail in a way an old ape like myself can understand and enjoy :) i always wanted bees when i was little, i dunno why, i guess because i was allergic to honey bees tho so i never did it( one year i ate SO much honey because i was trying to make myself no allergic to honey bees, no idea why i thought eating honey would help, but i love bees and i hated being allergic, i wanted to watch them do their stuff without being terrified of dying lol)
Bees wax turns darker when you heat it up that hot. I try and just get the wax to melt, and not boil before starting the process. There are also ways to get mor wax out of the crud if you force all the crud to the bottom with a filter then slowly the wax seep through the filter UP in the pot. The pot needs to be heated just to about 147F for a long period of time as the wax slowly makes it way UP.
I absolutely agree. I kept around 20 hives years back and always had a lot of wax to deal with. it does not take a great deal more effort to do a class 1 job. I had a pretty good finishing system, soaking it through fine cloth filter bags in a well insulated solar box. Even the cruddy rubbish and product from the filters would get sticks dipped or coated for firelighters. Sadly I got steadily worse and worse reactions to bee stings till I eventually had to pack up before I came to a sticky end.
As a person who really has no interest in any of these things, i can tell you that the way you showed this, i watched the whole thing, i think i have a new hobby!
As a honey lover, i have been quite aware of how widely the color and taste of honey can varry as a result of which palnts predominate in the vicinity of the hive. I confess feeling a little surprise that the wax is also affected; I had never even thought about that.
A honey lover myself Craig and I totally agree. I think most people don't realize it but honey does have many different flavors according to which plants they get the nectar from ... and I imagine dido for the wax.
It’s super random recommendations like these that I always love to see. I may never need or be able to use this information, but it sure was entertaining to learn about
As someone who reenacts French and Indian war I really appreciate a good beeswax candle. Even relatively small ones can be stuck in a lantern and burn for hours. It's one of our "if we see it buy some" items.
Most plastic window screen is made from polyester, which has a melting point of 482 F (295 C). Since your water boils at 212 F (100 C), and your wax melts at 144-147 F (62-64 CC). That plastic screen should withstand anything you can throw at it.
I made a solar beeswax melter/refiner over 40 years ago. I do NOT remember where i found the design. Basically, a 4x5 plywood box, with guides for the wax, burlap as the filter, and bread pans to catch the wax. Dad had a LOT of wax out of his 18 hives during the peak of our production when I was 16. NO fire, NO nothing, just glass in the sun. DAMN, wish I had the plans still. I think just a big aluminum plate, all the plywood painted black. dump the leftovers into the burlap, on the aluminum plate "boat", with burlap at the bottom as the filter. Easy Peasy, he sold it to the local bee supply shop... Had to check that sucker EVERY DAY, only load so much. For you folks, pouring through burlap will clean all the crud. We used to leave the cappings/etc out in a large pan, under cover, near the hives, for DAYS, so the bees would clean the honey and everything else they wanted, out of the cappings. Eventually, we would then dump the leftovers into the solar melter. LET THE BEES CLEAN IT FOR TWO WEEKS first. I don't actually remember how long we let them go through it. I think maybe until they just lost interest in it? THEN into the melter. Hope this helps!
This was crazy interesting. I love how all the bees stop by to help and see what you’re doing! Do you just get used to bees everywhere all the time? Thanks for sharing.
For future reference, I would recommend getting silicone mold pans. Or silicone bread pans. But if you get a silicone chocolate bar molds, it will portion out the wax as you pour it in there. You could ladle it in, or use a pitcher with a pour spout. A crock pot actually works really well for wax heating. I knew a candle maker that used an electric hot plate and just a (big) metal cookie tin for 20 lbs of wax
I'm a retired musician and electrical engineer, and I make custom electric guitar pickups in my spare time. After winding, the wire coils are dipped in a mixture of beeswax and paraffin wax (This gives a low-viscosity wax that solidifies well, but melts at a low enough temperature to avoid damaging the enamel or poly insulation used on the very fine (#42-#44 AWG) wire. My local beekeeper brings me around a pail of beautiful local honey every fall, and also for a few extra $ a good-size box of wax cappings, etc. that he doesn't have time to purify. Since by this time of year we have below-zero temperatures and a foot or two of snow, doing the wax rendering outside is not really an option. But - RU-vid came to my rescue. Another hobby beekeeper made a video about using an electric slow cooker for this job. I found a used one on Kijiji (Craigslist) for $5.00 that had an adjustable temperature control. It works perfectly for separating the capping wax from the dead bees and trash, although it takes two or three batches to clean up the whole box. Rather than do it in the kitchen and make a mess, I set up a small wax closet next to the "guitar pickup shop" in my basement. I hung plastic sheet on the walls & ceiling (left over from painting). The slow cooker method takes more time, but works just fine. Some really dirty stuff gets run through more than once, but it comes out as beautiful wax. I really like your idea of lining the mold pans with parchment paper, so thanks for that idea. A. P.S. - my local farm-supply store sells great big funnels with matching paper filters - imagine a giant Melita coffee filter cone - that are specifically for filtering wax. They were not expensive. I do my first stage with metal screen wire, as you suggest, and use the funnel and filter cones for the final stage. It works really well. I understand the same filter cone and filters are sold on Amazon, BTW. The filters are disposable - when they're still warm, I roll them into a cylinder, then cut that into sections. These make great fire starters. I used to use pantyhose for the last stage of filtering, but the cone filters do a better job, and don't cost much. As a result, the wax for "wax potting" my electric guitar pickups is super-clean. She Who Must Be Obeyed "borrowed" a block to use in making up craft projects for Christmas gifts, so my wax cleaning improved my reputation upstairs as well, lol. Thanks for posting this.
there is no better thermal insulator in nature than bees wax, especially as a building material. the bees are like romans with their concrete... great builders
My grandma used to treat my winter shoes with beeswax. Thought honestly they didn't need to be since they were modern winter shoes, but she's old fashioned. She doesn't do it anymore since I've grown up and know to take care of my own shoes.
Thanks for this very instructive video. I'm a Dutchman living in Bolivia (South-America) setting up my ecological homestead on 3.5 acres, and I've just started my first two bee hives. A was wondering how to separate the wax from all the rubbish, and your video explained it to me JUST PERFECTLY! So thanks a lot and I wish you well, Hans
