I loved my big beautiful blocks of rendered beeswax until it came time to use them for a project. Breaking one apart when you just need a few ounces was a pain! So I’ve started using lined muffin tins (use foil not paper liners) that I fill to different weights. Now I have jars with 1, 2, and 3 ounce little wax cupcakes when I want to whip up lotion bars, lip balms and little projects. It is more time consuming, but so much easier when wanting a quick rainy day activity! Great video sir! Thank you from Oklahoma! 👩🌾🌻🐝
Interesting note: old accordions have beeswax in them. It's used as a glue to hold the reed blocks in place and it seals them off to prevent blow-by. Don't keep your accordion in a hot car, or all the reed blocks inside will fall off.
Silicone cake pans would work well for this, no need for parchment paper and easy to get the rendered wax out once set. They aren't expensive either. Great video.
Here I am, waaaay up North of Norway in the dead of a cold dark winter 0700 in the morning enjoying a video about how to render Beeswax. Ain't life wonderful?
rendering one ounce beeswax cubes from cappings was probably THE most satisfying, wonderful, even theraputic thing i have ever done in my life. and i did mine from a local beekeeper's cappings, in a crockpot, on low temp, without adding water. this gave me a LOT of delicious raw honey, and also left my rendered wax SOOO sweet 😀. tip: doing this outside will draw a lot of bees 😮.
The sad thing about adblock is that the creator you are watching is not getting money from your view, if it’s a bad thing depends on who you are watching though lol
It's kinda sad that even needs to said but I rather have someone tell their audience that and it being unneeded than someone taking their partner's stuff without asking, as that happens way too often.
I have to keep buying bowl and spoons. My son must have Quite a big collection in his room he won't let me in it. But I will have to get in it one day and speed clean it!.
Given I have very specific items for baking and other forms of cooking, a partner who knows not to ruin my items gunking them up with wax or other substances is someone who is going to remain a partner
If wax is stuck to something, if a little heat doesn’t work- use ice or put it in the freezer. When wax gets cold, it gets brittle and will easily crack. It’s a great trick to get wax out of candle holders etc.
Freezing it will cause it to shrink away from the container it is in too. I do this to candles in glass or plastic containers all the time to clean the container so I can reuse them.
1 minute in and I already love this guy. Humble enough to say "you should have notes and find good instructions". lots of people will just play it off like they didn't need to look at instructions at all. Great video! :D
IDK WHY THIS HAS 330 THUMBS DOWN WHEN THIS IS ONE OF THE EASIEST 'HOW TO' VIDOES IVE EVER WATCHED ON 'ANYTHING! THANK YOU GREAT JOB GETTING ST8 TO THE POINT BUDDY!
You can purchase unfiltered beeswax, and render it yourself. I get mine from the Sue Bee Honey distribution center in southern California. Nice folks there, too! All the bees wax scent you want :D
Thank you for this video. The things that made me watch every single second and press like: 1- Simple approach. A no-nonsense video that hasn't been stretched more than needed 2- You explain all the steps you are doing. 3- You left the camera on to show the crystallization of the melted wax (+10pts for the nerds like me out there). 4- Those small moulds look absolutely amazing (looks between a traditional soap mixed with a pretty mould). 5- You mention the smell close to the end just when I was thinking "I wonder if its scent has any honey sweetness to it". Thanks for confirming. 6- You mentioned the firestarter and you actually tried it out to see the result and shared it with us. Keep it up. I hope you have been keeping safe and will ait for your future projects.
My father has a way bigger pot made of cast iron. It seems more water is better then less. He says to little water can trigger saponification. He starts filtering the wax soon after boiling, not waiting half hour. For filtering he uses some type of natural textile material with the shape of bag with a sharp tip, and he uses a small pot like a kettle to take the mix from big pot. It's important to put pressure on the mix from textile bag when filtering. He gets big 20kilos wheels of wax in the end. And there's more dedicated tools but don't know English words to describe those and process like i want. The thing it's a great adventure and seeing the final product gives great satisfaction. Greetings from Romania! I see you've put the mix in two smaller pots ... he uses one single plastic vessel as big as the cast iron pot, so he can get one big cleaner wheel of wax. And he covers that while waiting to solidify so insects won't get in and it seems slows down solidifying and avoids cracks. Your final wheel of wax is one of the cleanest i've seen👍😃!
Beautiful wax,& of course,NICE VIDEO!!!.When I was a child,my father used to have a lot of honeybees at our farm,where I grew up.He really loved them,& handled them with respect & admiration.Since we live in a Ecuatorial Country,-(Colombia)-,bees are very active,& they get plenty flowers around to work.So we used to harvest the honey,twice in a year.But one of the things I learned from my father,was,how useful is to return the wax to this so amazing creatures.Wax is produced by the honeybees,from their own body.So we can imagine,all the hard work & sacrifice they have to do,just to rebuild from scratch ,all their work we destroy during the process of getting their honey..So delivering their wax back to them,help them a little bit,as less to rebuild all what we destroy,while we extract their honey!!!.Greetings from Colombia!! :-) !!!.
Very nice end product. For the new beekeepers out there, the wax with debris (slum gum) is great for waxing plastic brood foundation as well as inside swarm traps. My rendering method is similar and I usually wind up with some that has debris in it so I pour it in silicone ice cube trays for use on foundation. The bees love it. Smells like home.
Exactly... My hubby stole the filter out of my coffer maker... I went 3 days without coffee... 3 DAYS!!!! I WAITED three days for a replacement... He knows the wrath of menopausal female without coffee now. :D
This man delivered that video with a surgical precision, absolute focus on information density and closely related tips and tricks. I could almost bet that he's got a military background. Having spent a few years in the german army myself, I really loved the presentation. Simply razorsharp and straight to the point.
My journey through youtube took me through traditional chinese music, yellow jacket removal, and then bees wax. I don't know what this pattern means, but I will figure it out. "It makes me feel better though" That's a mood, honestly. You have my like.
You need to rinse off the cakes after the first filter. Most of the fine sediment is loose on the cake so before you melt the cakes second time for fine filtering rinse them off with water to get the sludge off the backside. Will increase your results.
I had NO idea how much time and effort go into rendering bees' wax. This video was wonderful for myriad reasons. You really had excellent visuals of each step. You talked thru each step rather than just allowing us to watch. Kudos to you for all the reminders about how to keep things as tidy and safe as possible. (I hope your wife appreciates that, too!) Thank you for an educational and entertaining video!
@@6PinkGlamour9 Bees will recycle the wax in their hive so they probably recognise it as bees wax and want to take it back to use it. They get caught out because it's liquid when naturally that wouldn't be something they'd encountered before and so get stuck in it.
You know what?? Several days ago I looked up the Roman Empire (Biblical history was the reason), and lo and behold here is the recommendation of this video, and for some reason I clicked on it (and actually enjoyed it), and of course going thru the comments..and here you are lol
I'm highly-allergic to bee stings, so I'm not into bee-keeping -- HOWEVER -- I found your video absolutely fascinating! Thank you for taking the time to create this video. Best wishes from Kate in Olympia, WA.
I just watched this on New Year's Eve about 20 minutes before midnight and I feel like all the stress of the previous year just lifted off my shoulders.
For future reference, to get wax out of cloth or rugs, put paper towels over it and then use a warm iron. It'll melt the wax into the paper towels and remove most of it from the clothing/rug. Learned that from a friend's mom. Also, a trick: Get yourself a dedicated glass quart measuring cup and use that to dish out the cappings into the pot. This way, you know how many quarts of capping are in the pot, so you can measure out how much water you need.
you could also use silicon forms for baking - cupcakes or bread molds or even ice forms. makes it easier to store it in smaler chunks. Nice step by stepp process.
Silicon forms are amazing for any kind of molten thing you want to cast, as long as it's not hot enough to melt the form XD When it cools down you can just take the form right off.
Yep! A silicon mold put inside a regular pot or cake tin (if the silicon wall is thin the contents can spill) will work excellent, and also, they're relatively easy to clean
Definitely an interesting video to stumble across! I loved how the bees were buzzing around the wax as you strained it, like they were going, "Wait a minute, this is OUR wax!"
Totally worth the effort, I have made many candles and for that quality of beeswax every pound would cost at least $15. But I think for your operation it's probably best to reap the rewards yourself. Hey it only cost you time and a small amount of money and you have some very nice gifts for family and friends. When making candles it's the wax that is the most expensive ingredient and you have it as a byproduct of beekeeping!
This is how we sealed our canned foods on the farm. We didn't use metel lids and tin caps because that fail to seal or hold a seal alot of times. pouring an inch of hot beezwax on top of the boiling contents creates an air tight seal as things cool down. It's also anti fungal, bacterial, and microbial proof. Will keep canned food safe for many many years with no worries about any rusting goin on under medal lids.
That works. Can't do everything that way, though. When I was a kid, my mom made home made jelly and preserves. Never got a metal lid. She would put the hot jelly/preserves in glass jars, and pour melted paraffin on the top, about 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch thick. Worked just like ginger bread said. That was for jellies and preserves. Maybe the acids in the fruit helped preserve it, I don't know. Not a canner. She canned other stuff, vegetables, and used regular Mason jars, metal caps and bands. But I never saw any spoiled jelly/preserves from using the wax method. It kept all year. Don't know about "forever." Made new batches every year. Thing is, just because you haven't heard of something before doesn't mean it isn't a real thing. Get yourself an education before you start downing others. You are far from knowing everything. Realizing that would be a good starting point for you.
Well if you knew a place to get unwanted sawdust. You can take any discarded wax product melt it then mix in sawdust and dryer lint. Put in cardboard egg cartons or a thrift store muffin tin. Great waterproof fire starters.
Yes, two good ways to further process beeswax-reject. However, also two remarks needed here. First, when collecting sawdust, only take the pristine clean stuff and preferably from a cutting/sanding device that doesn't use oil. Especially when you want to use the fire-starter indoors (for reasons of smell). Second, if you only have cotton clothes in your dryer, go ahead and collect the lint afterwards. If you have polyester-fibres there as well, you might want to look for a different source as the smell of burning plastic isn't fantastic.
@@wauhawk There's actually a little bit of humor in your comments. I was a long-haul trucker and I used to go to a lot of paper mills in Maine. That old country song about a tombstone every mile was 'cuz of highway engineers in that state! But, a friend still in the trucking game says that most of the mills have been bought out by China to make that horrible knock down furniture! It seems like they have so few trees that folks who can afford it buy oxygen in a can! A friend was doing business there and he said that air was worse than the brown haze over California!
I'm literally addicted to this man's videos. I wanna save the bees but I also don't wanna go broke so I'm planning on starting a Local Business that sells Bee Products
That is truly gorgeous colour - I can only guess how beautifully it smells! I purchase all my bee products from a local keeper who lives nearby, and the difference between her products and the store bought honey or beeswax is night and day. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge with all of us! Btw - our beekeeper friend always gives us some of the particulates and sluff from her beeswax processing and yes - once it’s dried out it’s amazing fire starter! Use it all the time when we’re hiking as it’s pretty light once dried.
Great job on the video. Just a little advice for next time though, scrape all the crap off the bottom of the first step (screened wax) before you do the second refining melt. Then you have a lot less junk to screen out the second time. Just grab your hive tool or similar and scrape as much of the gunk off the block as you can.
Thank you very much for this video: most helpful. I'm a retired expat living in rural northern Việt Nam and practically all of the wax is just discarded by the local folks. Now maybe that can be changed. Thanks again.
There is something so utterly satisfying about watching the rendered beeswax poured into a vessel. Cleaned of all the impurities, that amber gold is just divine to look at. Plus, the vibrant yellow of the solidified wax and the promise of all it's wondrous applications are incredibly fun to witness. Thanks you for providing us with this tutorial and the fascinating process behind this age-old craft.
I used to melt beeswax in a double boiler to use for batiked fabric. It gave off the most wonderful natural Cranberry smell, I loved it. Thanks for this video. 😊
Mix the "dirty" wax with saw dust, or dunk paper towel that's rolled up about the size of a fat pencil. The wax is the fuel AND the protectanct of the load (paper). I make them about 4 inches long and use one per fresh fire...probably could use less for dry fire bed. Cotton, wood shavings, paper scraps, or anything that wax will wick onto.
A couple of things that "y'all" might like to consider: 1. If you are going to work outside, perhaps it's better to do after sunset, or at least when bee wont be out foraging. 2. If you put some water in the pot FIRST, you wont get that burnt patch that ruins y'alls pot. 3.Instead of using panty hose as a filter, filter cloth is so much more durable ( get it from an industrial supplier) but far better than anything, is to boil up the wax with plenty of water, and pour the lot into a tall, narrow stainless steel cylinder to cool over night. I use a couple of old fire extinguishers with their tops cut off. or you can get ss pipe from a scrap metal dealer, or steel merchant. About 8inches diameter works well, ( you have to be careful to make sure the cylinders are stable and wont tip over, of course.) To get the wax out, you may just need to heat the sides of the cylinder, or force water through a hole in the bottom of the tube, which you might have sealed with a pinch of clay. You end up with super clean wax at the very top, and progressively dirtier stuff . at the very bottom. Cut that off, and put aside for the next rendering.. Always remember that hot wax is exceptionally hot so take a lot of care.
ikr? Guy took out all kinds of bees during this process without given much thought. Each bee killed is a loss of a lot of workload and needs to be avoided as much as possible. It's bad enough having to deal with pests and predators. His set up reminded me of old school smelting techniques in major need of modernization. IOW, it's ghetto and there's got to be a better way.
@@ulibarriL It happens all the time with beekeeping, especially when keepers replace the tops of hives and some get squashed. And then there are hives that have to be euthanised for one reason or another; aggression for one. There are thouands of bees in hives and more are produced by the queens. The loss of one or two isn't going to be the end of the world.
definitely one of the better videoes about cleaning beeswax on YT. I did it in a very similar way but I repeated the boiling in water step until I was satisfied
I am amazed as to how things went to get from the raw was to the beautiful gold beeswax. It looks like golden butter and very pretty. Keep up the awesome work!!
I keep coming back to this video. I've watched it at least 4 times or so by now. Something about the rendering process is so comforting, not sure what, but every couple of months I'm back watching this video.
while in Florida, i met some lovely bee keepers at a local farmer's market.... they were so nice and had lots of information to share. Even panflets... and soaps, honeys, candles and most anything honey or wax related.... and while i will support my local bee keepers, nope, not going into beekeeping!
I'm just getting into this. Extracted some honey the other day with the help of my 2 sons-in-laws (because they wanted to see the process). I started rendering the wax last evening. I'll wait for a day that I to have enough time to do this entire process. Great video and instruction! Thank you for sharing. Jim
as the pastor of a church that buys 51% beeswax candles on a regular basis I appreciate the work that goes into them, from all creatures involved, and understand their expense.
I can tell that doing this is a labor of love for you. You talk about your your clean wax as if it's your baby. When filling the mold you said "this is some of the prettiest yella wax I have ever seen". All i could say was "Awwwww" like a new dad seeing his first child for the first time... It really melts your heart, pun intended. LOL
Every video I have seen, they do it the same way and they always make fire starters with the cap material. This is a self reliant bunch. Makin bees wax and startin fires whenever need be. I love it!.
Merry Christmas man! This has gotta be one of the most clear guides I've ever watched. And I absolutely adore bees, maybe I should try to get into it...
when i saw this pie of wax, i said "Oh woa, it's like the sun !!" it's amazing to see what bees can give for free ! Well, what can i say, it's nature in all its splendor, take care of her and she will give you everything you want !
Fabulous video! If you want to make fire starters out of the leftover "garbage" take cardboard egg cartons and fill the cups with dryer lint. Melt the leftover drippings and pour over the dryer lint. Cut the cups into individuals once the contents have dried/solidified and voila!!! Works like a charm.
I love how real and authentic you are. Most people would cut out their mistakes but you leave them in the video to help people. A+ my friend! I subscribed and I clicked that 🔔!
Really enjoyed your common sense advice on logistics of that job. LOVED your use of time lapse video- it’s perfect subject matter for that clever option. Eager to try try myself, Thanks!
