Cleaning Melting and Filtering Beeswax
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- It's a beekeeping update. Sort of. I wanted to show ya'll how I deal with all that left over wax from my crush and strain honey extraction. It's pretty simple. Wash the wax with cold water. Then melt it in a pot with 2" of water in the bottom. Let cool over night, dump out water. Then scrape the bottom of the wax hunk with a knife. Once all the loose goo comes off, go through the process again. I took 4-5 meltings to be satisfied with the results. It's pretty easy all things considered. Just time consuming.
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Your process was way more simple than other videos I watched. Thanks. You didn't use all sorts of sieves and cheesecloths. This is a lot less messy. Yeah, you have to do several times in the pot. But it really works.
I have bees. I use the honey water to make kombucha, it's really good for it. I also added to vinegar making, for the mother of vinegar to consume.
Hi, i use some vinagre when the wax is hot, that helps to filter the bits a lot faster. Just 1 or 2 heatings will do the job. If you melt the clean caps seperate from the the dirty ones you can get a very clean waxblock in just one melting
Thank you for this very helpful video. I'm planning on buying raw wax from a farm and I think they did a little bit of the process but still needs some more filtering.
Please do not change the way you are, or you look at the camera. You are a wonderful woman!
Thank you so much for video. You did a great job! Your practical advice about what pot to use and not to get any wax down the drain is super helpful. :)
By the way, if you keep it "warm" and "still" (making sure not heating up to bubbling) for several hours then let it cool down to room temperature slowly, you don't need to repeat the process few times as you give enough time for sedimentation of foreign particles.
I never thought of that! Good use of the sugars in the honey and water for soaking grains/seeds. Awesome idea!!
I soak my wax to help dissolve the honey. I use warm (not hot) water and just let it sit over night or for a few days to get all the leftover honey off of the wax. It's kind of over kill since the hot water when you melt the honey will do the same thing. But the cleaner the wax is when I start the melting/filtering process the fewer times I have to melt and cool. I usually double up strainers to make a tighter mesh to catch most of the tiny particles of wax once it's done washing.
This is an amazingly straight forward video. Thanks for taking the time to share!
Actually this is a good bit of info and it's fairly to the point, which is always nice.
Just found ur video in a Google search...8 years after u posted. Thanks so much! Subscribed
Great simple video.
I just started with bees, caught/rescued my own swarm.
Looking forward to more learning from you.
I'm in Australia.
Thank you very much for this helpful video. I'm a new beekeeper and won't be harvesting anything until the spring. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep the bees alive over winter. I have been scraping burr comb when I do hive checks and really don't have enough to bother rendering, but I'm might give it a go anyway. Thanks again.
Using any metal container that can be closed tightly, such as a brand new one gallon paint can, place the wax in the can in as small pieces as patience will allow, add the turpentine, close the lid tight, and without stirring or turning, in a few days the mixture will have turn into a paste or a sauce, depending on the proportion. For waxing floors, I like a hard paste, for delicate veneers on antique furniture, the texture of tooth paste works best.
Hello Jen,
The reason for this note is thusly; I prepare my own furniture wax using a primitive and simple English recipe, so simple in fact, that it cannot be found on the market. All it takes is the bee´s wax and the purest turpentine that can be found, and that’s all.
i really dont know why im watching a video of something i will never do myself at 5 am. it was a good video though.
hi stranger, have a good day
You're still in better position then mine!
I'm an astronomer and we're having a midnight rain here.
So i'm watching bee handling videos now :)
Super helpful tutorial. I've been struggling with this process for years and haven't yet made clean wax. Thanks!!
this is the simplest way I've seen on how to do this process. thank you!!!!
Thank you! I've finally been able to clean up a pile of old wax I had using this technique. Works a treat.
That is a really great question and I have no idea! I never measured all the gunk before to see how much it weighed. I ended up with about a 5 lb. block of wax but I've no idea what I started with. I would filter it to about what I did for lotion bars. It should be clean and free of impurities if you'll be making cosmetics. It's less important to be super filtered if you are using the wax for candles.
You have so far the best way I have seen, thank you so much
Virgin wax is filled with honey and bee parts. I've never heard of anyone using virgin wax before it's been melted and filtered, it might make your furniture wax sticky. I'm sure it would save you some time since shaving down wax can be tedious. I don't sell my wax because I harvest just enough for my own uses. I'm not sure beeswax can be purchased pre-cleaning in it's virgin state.
Well, you could heat up the bees wax then pour it slowly through a paper towel in a strainer. This will filter it allot better. I saw someone using this filtering method with a solar wax melter and the wax was nearly clean on the first pass. But I would do what you showed for the second pass. I think a mix of the two would produce a nice product as far as home based.
I think your right. have you tried it? Did it work?
Thank you for this, I am a beginner this year, and this greatly helps me to understand the process.
You must have a few hundred dollars of bees wax there. Lol. Wow.
I added a new step to the filtering process. When the wax in liquified in the pot with the water, I take a handheld strainer and dip it into the mixture to remove the non wax particles. Then I dump what I collect in the strainer over cheesecloth stretched over a pot with a couple inches of water in it. That gives me a bit of clean wax which I will add to the next pot I heat up. This greatly reduces the impurities that are in the big pot of wax. So I will have much less "gunk" to scrape off the bottom of the cooled cake of wax. Having multiple pots for this purpose is needed. Two are enough but four would be better so you can process more wax.
I just watched LDS prepper he has a much faster way of filtering you should take a look at it. He has a cookie sheet filled with a little water and a screen with a piece of paper towel in a solar heater and takes a small pile of wax, lets it melt and continues this until he has all the wax melted the paper towel holds all of the impurities and he lets it cool over night and it's perfectly filtered and formed in the cake pan with water.
Every prepper video = 20 minutes of listening to someone telling you that "If you don't do it this way you will DIE!!!!!!!! Followed up by 2 minutes of them actually showing you what to do.
Good job on the video , both the presentation and the camera work !
You wasted all that residual honey. Instead of rinsing the wax you could have just added water and boil the wax on low and let cool. After the wax solidified, you could strain that water and reuse it to feed the bees, a portion for cooking and use in drinks .
Great video, we do a similar process except with the first melt we filter it through a cheese cloth. This gets rid of most of bee bits and lumps of propolis.
We must do a blog post one day about the whole process.
Have also used this easy method. As Gary said putting it through a cloth works even quicker. Old tights or stockings are really good for this and can be used several times.
Yep and the old clothes make great fire lighters for the smoker :)
uhh I am a ignorant beginner no native english... What is a cheese cloth ?
It's essentially a filter. Like a mesh of cloth that will filter out the impurities.
do you add cheese to it before or after the melting?
A great education in beeswax, thank you . Now I'm going to make real THC Cream/Balm w beeswax and coconut oil.
Hello Rain nice video myself I wash capping wax in warm water .The warm water thins out any honey still on the wax .using a 5 gallon bucket containing capings and warm water to cover capings .Iuse my hands working the wax and water a few minutes Ihave another bucket with some sheer curtain material across top of bucket but hanging down in bucket a few inches to hold wax that is getting washed then dump wax water mix while still warm and a little more warm water over wax and let sit so water drains or you can pull the curtain material up around wax and off bucket and wring water out Thanks Jim
There's another guy that shows the same basic method here, but he saves that stuff you scraped off the bottom. Presumably that's the propolis. He says he sells that stuff too.
thank you! trying your method now. appreciate the time you took to make the video.
I spread all my wax out on a large 10X10' piece of plastic and let the bees clean it, then melt it, strain it thru 4 layers of cheese cloth and pour it in molds.
I've never done that because it can insight 'robbing' mentality in the nearby hives. I never let the bees clean anything because I don't want to try and stop a mob of bees.
+dave12546 not recommended as a) attracts robber bees and wasps and b) can cause disease pass from hibe to hibe
maybe if you have the plastic next to the hives, my hives are a 100 yds away and never had a problem
Thanks a lot!!! I have a big chunk of unfiltered beewax and really wanted to use it for cosmetics! I'm gonna try it tommorrow
The only problem with that method is the beeswax must be kept hot. As it cools down it solidifies and without the wax in a liquid form nothing will get through the cheesecloth. Plus I found that the cheesecloth collects a lot of wax that will never be usable. But it is true you can do the cheesecloth method, I just find it a bit more messy.
Thank you so much! I will be trying this way for my first time. We just had our first harvest so we’ll have a bit to melt down. I’d like to save some for salves and things. :)
To get it really white you'll have to start out with virgin wax or wax that was created that year. It's best from honey supers because it's never had any brood in it. This wax is already really light colored. As for how many times you'd have to wash it..... I've got no clue. Mine lightened up considerably with every washing and I went through at least 5. But if you are using virgin wax, you won't have to wash it as much because it's brand new wax.
Ty. You made it look easy.
Thank you for interesting Video. Best greetings from beekeepers in Ukraine! Good luck and good honey!
You can get it clear sooner by telling the wax cool slower by putting the pan in a Haybox, a box used in the olden days for cooking, this lets more particulate matter sink to the bottom.
Do you have a video that talks about the uses for beeswax? I have so much and I want to use it instead of letting it go to waste.
This a great video . I had not idea you need todo this
Good job. The best I've seen after watching many others.
You are so awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
awesome video, thank you for the knowledge
Thanks for your ideas. Especially washing the dirty wax before heating, I've never washed it. What is your method for draining the "dirty' water between each of your overnight soaks? Thank you!
I shall try your process, it is simple and understandable
Straightforward, clear and concise. Excellent video
or.....you could ad some wine yeast to the honey water (one's for sweet wines is best) and some yeast energizer, pop it in to a demi-john with an airlock, leave it for about 2 years and you could have honey wine! :) great vid btw!
Hi.
Try placing a 60 watt tungsten filament lamp in the bucket and the wax should float off the rubbish overnight. Switch the bulb offa nd lif the wax away when solid. Wouldn't it separate like that?
You do collect the propolous. That's the gunk that you scraped off of the bottom of the cooled blocks.
Thank you really showed the ease of the process thanks a lot more sense now
Use low heat to maintain the soft texture of the beeswax. Too much heat makes it fragile. Usually I dont allow it to boil I only heat it up enough to melt the wax.
you know if you have a pet/farm pet.. you could use that honey water for fermenting food for them..
ya.. we waste a lot of fresh water... it's kinda crazy when you think about it.. every 3 years we have some type of drought yet watching all that water run down the drain always disturb me.. take care!
I liked this video a lot. Very nicely done. When I did mine, mine stuck to the sides of the pan and cracked in the middle. Do you think this is because my pan was too big for the amount of wax I had? The wax was only about 1/2 inch thick.
I this is an older post but I will ask. Couldn't I just wrap the comb in cheese cloth (fine cheese cloth) and boil it that way to get the wax separated from the debris?
I haven't tried that yet. But I would like to, because propolis is good stuff.
Great job! Thank you.
nice video, but if i want it extra white for cosmetic manufacturing how many times i need to wash it ?
Thank you! I bought some beeswax for candle making, but the wicks are getting clogged with some kind of microscopic debris (that isn't visible to the eye in the meltet wax). Could it be pollen and propolis? Or even too much honey left in the wax?...
Great job, your follower from Iraq
Very Nice Video!! Thank You for Sharing that!!!
I saw no actual filtering here, and that's a missed opportunity. At the first melting, run the hot water and wax through a fine strainer, and immediately you're rid of much of the junk. I refine fat (lard) like this for soap-making. I do that in the cold month so I can set the pot outside for the fat to congeal -- as it won't congeal like beeswax at room temperature.
FWIW, you can clean a pot completely of waxes by using hot water and detergent, but it's still a good idea to use a cheap pot for refining beeswax.
If you have a glut of beeswax and want to get rid of some, I'd be happy to buy some off you.processed, or unprocessed.
What is the gunk at the bottom? Pollen? Bee body parts? Where does the dirt come from?
Great video. Thanks for sharing!
Let it come to a boil and remove from heat? Or just melt it and remove? Thanks.
To save time Filter you melted wax through a metal mesh strainer and it will get the "bits" out so all you have to do is melt it once
Very informative video. Thanks
This was helpful. Thanks for sharing!
Hi. I have a question. How long do you boil it until you let it cool down? Thanks.
Do i have to add up water or keep adding up water in each boiling session?
Thank you, very nice tutorial!!! :D
I tried this method and all of my slum gum stuck to the underneath of the wax. Nothing sunk to the bottom, so when I pull the cake out I had all of the slum gum stuck right there and had to scrape it off. A lot of it was also incorporated into the beeswax, so unfortunately this method didn’t really work for me that well. Do you have any pointers? Thanks!
Awesome video. Thanks!
Ever try a double boiler with no water in the wax?
you never pour it through a tshirt or a piece of cloth? I have to filter 20-30lbs at a time and I find it too much work. I heat it with water just like you do when Its all melted I pour it into a bucket through a an old tshirt. then repeat 3-4 times.
Thanks for this great information! Sounds simple enough!! :)
This is a helpful video. Thanks!
So I take it this is an alternative method to directly heating up the cappings and using cheesecloth to strain anything out? By sitting twice over night it naturally strains itself...is that correct?
If you don't already you should collect the propales (the gunk) ps.It sells for a pretty penny
Great video...do you sell your wax?
I bought some beeswax online, but it's a green type of colour. Is this normal? I want to use it in making my own beard balm.
Thanks!
Hey what do you use to squeeze the honey out of the comb?
Thank you. Very informative!
i got a question my step dad has bees he brought me 3 big ziplock bags and says here is u some beeswax for ur soap making, well its kind of mushy and soft he said he cooked it. So how do i now get it to be a hard beeswax i can't figure what he did.
Tanx for the info you share!
believe it or not you just taught me to make a bronze sword for my new series. just need to render the wax in a more bronze age appropriate way. any ideas are welcome.
+jake michaels I don't know how much more basic you can get than fire and water...
+Alexander Borsi when making bronze it's not basic when it's from scratch
Amazing. You're great. Thankyou.
if i have it all full of honey still can i just melt it all and let cool? the honey will be on the bottom and wax on top?
What is the weight of one brick that's in your hand?
The Presto pot method is a lot better. It just depends on the filter material you use
What do you do with beeswax
I'm actually really nervous about doing this for the first time, I've seen videos on make shift solar ovens to melt and filter the wax but I'm unsure I want an easy process
Great for bullets too.
Does the final was block contain any water at all?
I want to follow your method but I want it to be %100 beeswax
Thanks