Rendering Beeswax... Worth The Hassle? Let's Find Out!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- As you progress in beekeeping, you start to accumulate wax from a few different sources... Old frames, extraction cappings, burr comb, hive inspections... Is it really worth the hassle to save all that wax and render it at the end of the year? In this video I show you how much wax you will get from each of these types of wax. I also share my best pro tip for the wax rendering process!
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I don't know how TH-cam algorithms work, but thanks for bringing me here.
I don't keep bees. I know nothing about beekeeping. I don't have a need for wax, but this was really interesting.
Have a great time doing what you do.
Thank you!
When you have no idea how you got here but enjoy the ride anyways.
Yes, enjoy the ride. My wife is deadly afraid of bees, wasp and any flying insect larger than a fly.
I do need wax for leather work I am doing and want to support the smaller beekeepers.
Some of us who are here and also beekeep welcome you. We have chosen(or have been chosen) to be the stewards to pass on a skill and tradition. Not only to produce honey and wax for sustanence, but to recruit others to consider the responsibility to the future generations that haven't been born yet.
We're all educators and students at the same time.
@@vinofarm Send wax my way. Any condition.
The dirty remains make good fire starters. I pour the dirt wax into toilet paper rolls filled with wood chips
Make the “junk” into fire starters! Pour into an egg carton and break them apart.
That is a fantastic idea!
Good idea.
I've done that with some old slumgum I accumulated. They make an excellent way to get your grill or BGE going.No need for starter chimneys or stinky lighter fluid!
Thats a good idea, but idk how well the junk would burn being that its going to have water emulsified into it.
That would be a great business opportunity!
The wax moths will have reduced the amount of wax you recovered from the frame wax too. Since they eat it, and then leave behind their waste.
Was really hoping to see the final massive block of wax, such a cliffhanger at the end!
Yeah... I had just spent 2 days rendering wax and didn't have time to get the hero shot at the end. I wanted to get the video edited. There will be more once I decide what to do with all the wax!
@@vinofarm There is another method. Let the bees make new fresh frames and harvest these frames early before they are really being used. Its a bit more using your bees as farm animals, but if you provide enough food and frames or (old) combs it shouldn't be an issue for the bees. Should get you less dirty wax too.
The junk / garbage probably still contains enough fats and burnables to be able to use it to burn and heat something outside. Just don't throw it in any advanced burners because of the fatty / junky smoke.
@@vinofarm - I know you've talked about selling your honey; I'd buy wax. (I like to make lotions, balms, etc.) Just, ya know, saying. Alternatively, if you'd like to learn to DIY, I'd be happy to send you the foolproof (necessary for me, trust) recipes I use, OR introduce you to someone in Hudson who could give you a full botanical How-To-what to mix into balms and lotions for the best benefits. I'm sure you grow a lot of the plants on your property already. [I'm pretty sure I mentioned her to you before; that she'd likely be interested if you ever started growing certain plants, like hyssop. (Edit: interested in buying dried flowers for her apothecary/tea shop/awesomesauce store.)]
...I also know of a local-ish company that might be able to walk you through beard balms and the like, too. ...and if you made a no-additional scent one of those, I'd buy it for my husband. 😉
The waste water and gunk can be added to compost
I use a Solar wax melter box I made, It depends on the weather how fast it renders the wax, but it only takes one step and the wax is clean, no need of scrapping the bottom.
The box has a stainless steel sheet and over that is a frame whit small chicken wire + paper towel that filters the junk. The papes do absorb some wax but I use it + the junk to start campfires so it is not lost.
We will not have temperatures too far above freezing for the next 4 months. No solar melting until maybe next June! I would like to try it someday.
My daughter and I built a solar melter with an putting aluminum foil in an old medium box with a piece of plexiglass on top. We filtered with window screen and paper towels over and into a shallow pan of water. It worked great, nice clean wax. That is until fall weather came. Next year I am going to make mod2 of our solar melter and start sooner.
@@lastphcm does the window screen not melt in any way with the heat?
Alejandro Arango no it did not melt
@@vinofarm You would be surprised. I use a solar melter. If is clear and not windy it will get hot enough to melt wax at pretty cool temperatures. The nice thing about the solar melter is gunk is left up top and the wax is pretty clean on the first pass. Not very convenient for cappings, but for everything else it is great.
Hey Jim. Take the frame scrapings (which a lot appeared to be brood comb), melt it down and role on the inside of your swarm trap(s). I also take a ball of propolis and rub that all around the entrance of the traps... works great for bait!
Good ideas. Thanks.
Another idea of how to use your wax: food wraps! You coat fabric with beeswax and use it instead of plastic wrap for leftovers and stuff.
I see you watch the Medieval dude too.
Wait til you find the bees wax, honey, and goats milk soap.
My neighbor just told me about this too! We're going to re-dip her srore bought ones and make some new as my first project.
I make beeswax wraps all the time. You need to add some pine resin and some sort of oil- coconut or jojuba. But it is really easy to do and makes great gifts
him: “dead bodies..”
me, a non-beekeeper, forgetting this is about bees: oh?
Jim, your wax clippings is definitely so much cleaner than the old comb. I normally just use my rendered wax to recover my plastic foundations. Once I filter it a couple of times I use an old crock pot to melt it and a small paint roller and recover the foundations while still in the frames. Thanks for the video!
Those cappings came out super clear! I botched the reveal, but one more meltdown and they'll look great. Thanks for watching!
Very nice video! My family and I make homemade candles at home and even with paraffin wax you definitely need to strain. Never thought about the paint filter trick! We'll definitely test that out sometime when we need to melt down old wax.
And I have to agree that remelts and plenty of filtering will aid you in cleaning everything up. Depending on how "natural" you want to go, there's a few additives you can add to help stabilize the wax if you're aiming to make candles. Vybar aids with binding the wax, so it doesn't form cracks as it's cooling. UV stabilizer is only really needed if you're planning on adding any dyes. If so, I recommend using a liquid dye rather than solid as it's easier to get the color you want. If not, all you need is the Vybar really unless you foresee having the candles in storage for a long length of time, or sitting in the sun a lot. Also, for beeswax, it's hard enough once cool that you can use molds rather than just jar candles. Do your research on wick diameters versus wax melting temperature, as too large a wick can burn too hotly, and flash burn the wax in a too small candle, posing a significant fire hazard. If you're looking for quantity, votive candles will yield the highest amount of candles per amount of wax without being too ridiculous. And there are some fun molds aimed towards beekeeping you might find interesting.
Uh...sorry for the super long comment. Figured I'd share what knowledge I have.
Again, great video, and thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for the advice!
I loved the advice. we just started our first hive this spring and I'm excited and can't wait to start getting honey and making things with bees wax. I have a friend that has an arts/crafts store in my little town and I know she would let me sell my homemade beeswax stuff I make. we are going to be getting more hives next year. bees are amazing little creatures. I've learned allot about bees.
I can see keeping the cappings separate. The rest I would mix together and use a mini paint roller and roll wax onto frames. The bees will draw that out extremely fast. Also try pouring pot if melted wax into a 5 gal bucket with water in it. With a few buckets you can keep moving. Love your videos. Thanks
WhooHoo the first person I have seen using paint socks. Definitely the PRO tip
I don't know anything about bee-keeping or bee's wax, but I love your videos. They are so informative. That said, could you possibly melt the "junk" wax down and mix it with wild bird seed to make a kind of suet cake for the birds through the winter?
SAVE THAT SLUM GUM! Filter the wax by placing the comb (the darker the better) on a sheet of burlap in a solar wax melter. The slum gum saturated burlap can later be cut into "slum gum mats" and placed on top of the frames in your bait hives as a super swarm attractant.
I use a solar wax melter and do small batches throughout the summer. Just drop some wax in, go do inspections, and come back to clean melted wax. No mess in the kitchen either.
Love this! Been watching a lot of beeswax rendering videos recently and it's just really hard to find ones with a well shot and edited video. I've been waiting for you to come out with one!
Jim, great way to show where your time and efforts are worth investing! I see so many Beeks just toss all the wax, regardless of source, into the same vat and strain/clean their wax so many times to get to the final clean yellow wax. What i see here is that cappings wax are the way to go and the other wax just isn't worth chasing unless you are at a commercial volume level. Well done!
Thanks for watching! I agree...
To render my wax I use a solar oven, with a screen bowel over a glass cake pan with water and the screen bowel is lined with a good paper towel to filter the wax. My wax comes out bright yellow and clean.
I've had good success using an old slow cooker (low setting) with cheese cloth (grade 90). Add enough water to pop it out easy after it cools.
I've seen the slow cooker method... I just don't have one.
Second hand stores sell them for pennies on the dollar.
@@StaceyMayer I can afford one. I just don't HAVE one. After all these suggestions, I'll grab one next time I see one at a thrift store.
@@vinofarm - I bought a two quart slow cooker at Walmart for only $9+. It takes longer, two hours to melt the wax, but it won't burn it. Works well, albeit a slow process.
Try the candle makers pouring pot. Use a double boiler and ...
It's faster than the crock pot and...if you buy a candle mold, wick, and mold release you can make dandy little candles that CLEAN THE AIR WHEN YOU BURN THEM. Bees wax candles are special. They ionize the air which causes impurities to drop out. Cool huh? I'd say that's divine.
Vino you'll get where you've got 40 pounds of wax on a shelf.
Get the little one ounce mold set because eventually someone will ask for some wax. It's neat to be able to just hand them a nice little piece of your beeswax.
I have chunks that are 5 gallon bucket sized about 2 gallons worth per chunk.
You should try a Solar wax melter, much easier and less mess. You simply put the wax renderings in the melter and set it in the sun, the melter filters the wax as it melts and puts it in a nice tray. If it isn't clean enough you can put it back in the melter and let it go through it again. In the end it's clean neat and all from the power of the sun. We use a store bought solar melter but many folks we know have made their own. Thanks for you videos, we love watching them. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Bee Year.
Do Solar melters require the sun and/or an actual warm day? We're 6 months away from that! Maybe some day.
@@vinofarm In our experience, we live in North GA mountains, the sun will melt the wax in most temperatures. I will say the warmer temps help but not absolutely needed. My wife is originally from Canada and she has good cold weather experience, lol. If you have a warm home with a window that has good sun you can use that window and your warm home to melt wax. After seeing your methods it reaffirmed how much we like our solar melter. It is cleaner and faster. We love your videos and thank you for taking the time to share your Beekeeping adventures. Take care and Merry Christmas.
You’re so good at educating in your videos.
Yes, It's a lot of work, but if you're only doing it once a year.......?? You might try the 'junk' through cheesecloth on the 2nd rendering (or anything with a finer mesh than the paint strainers....which are a great idea!). I've got to tell you, Jim: Initially, your videos were a bit 'frenzied' (do something, anything, until you find something that kinda works). Now, though, I look forward to every video (more so than before) because i know that you've accumulated experience and anything you do is going to be very well thought out and very likely to succeed....even when you're doubtful! I find that educational, entertaining, *and* very relaxing! Thanks so much for all of your hard work and persistence! :-)
Thanks for your support, Norm!
Time is definitely a factor, but I'd imagine that all wax is useful, tbh.
Use the cruddy wax from the scraped frames and bircomb to line new frames that will be installed later (giving the bees a hand up in building their hives), while keeping the good wax for your own use (candles, dips for the tops of honey hard, etc).
It's all worth something in the end
That thin disk would be helpful for me in some leather working... Id clean it up a bit and just melt it into a small soap size bar to use for threading even though its dirty itd still work really well for it.
Even still though hard to believe its been 3 years since you dropped that one hive comb when you started :P
Thank you for the great video! I just got done scrapping about 20 frames myself, and had a FULL paint bucket strainer I placed into my solar wax melter I just build. After several hours in the sun on a very hot day, I ended up with about 3 tablespoons of wax. I was frustrated and threw all of it in the trash bin. Then I wondered if I had made a mistake and started looking things up on youtube. You helped me confirm I made the right choice. I'll continue melting down my cappings, but won't ever bother with the old frame scrappings ad they don't render enough wax to make it worth my time.
It is amazing how little wax there is leftover from old brood frames.
I set my waste outside in a plastic paint pan roller. The sun seperated it some more but the amazing thing was bees constant picking through it. It was about double fist sized gunk that is now golf ball sized. I also had a chunk of new comb in a frame set out in an open box. I have seen that bees don't recycle wax but they chew this wax to almost nothing. I now have an area for waste products so the bees and wasps can utilize what they want.
That's a good idea. I'll set that junk aside for next summer when things warm up.
@@vinofarm its 66 here today which might be a tad warmer than your location! My bees are active. Yours would probably appreciate you saving it for them.
Fun video with fun music as a new beekeeper I appreciated watching all of this
Wow! Thanks! I just picked up 16 pounds of beeswax blocks from a local beekeeper for my candles , lip balms and body butters. I knew it was liquid gold but watching the process is proof! That paint bag is genius! Thanks for the very informative and entertaining video!
I use the paint strainers too, but I have a big crockpot that I use. Basically the same method, strainer over the crockpot, pour in water and fill with the wax, cover and keep an eye on it till melted.
interesting method. But from what I've found, wax always rises to the top so you really don't need to strain it in the melting process with the paint strainer. Maybe 99% of the dirt will sit below the wax (if left undisturbed) and the waste will either be in the water when cooled or attached to the underside of the wax block, so you simply scrape it off. Re-rendering wax will refine the process even more. And there are easier methods than this but thanks for sharing your process.
Beautiful...watching in 2024...still great content
I watch a lot of these types of videos. I have never seen people use the paint strainer like that. Epic pro tip.
You are a gifted video maker. Informer of bee things. Thank you for the inspiration and information
Thank you for watching!
I don't have bees but I make beeswax candles and other body products with beeswax. I get my beeswax from local beekeepers, some of it barely processed. I filled thru paper towels and melt the beeswax over cool water with a heart gun. As it melts it drips they the paper towels and since I layer them it does multiple filterings at the same time. With the paper towels layered into a metal sieve the wax drips straight thru and the metal sieve is reusable because it's not coated with wax. Since you aren't using the stove you have less concern if burning your wax. You can use any size plastic bucket since you are melting into cold water and you get smaller pieces that do take a little more room to store, but are much easier to use. And the paper towels my mom uses as firestarters for her fireplace.
I enjoy everything you post
I still don't know jack about bees, but I know it's NOT ABOUT THE HONEY but todaaay... it's about the wax. Loved it!
Hi Vino,
This year I tried home solar wax melter and I was able to render the most filthy wax very clean on the first try.
I used a large stainless steal salad bowl, silicon cake mould a strainer, another silicon strainer, kitchen paper towels and put that in a plastic bag under a glass sheet.
One sunny day is all I needed and the wax was rendered and clean.
Worth a trial if you wanting to experiment and also does not take as much time and effort.
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for.....Thank You! 💛💛💛🐝🐝🐝
This was a PERFECT video. I’m starting my 3rd season as a beek and you have just saved me a TON of work. I’m not even going to bother melting any wax when I scrape my frames now. Maybe I’ll just toss that stuff on our bonfires! THANK YOU!
Glad it helped!
Thank you for showing the results of the different wax that you collected.
Very good presentation, logical approach. As all your video’s this was very engaging. We will copy your technique tonight. Once again thanks from East Tennessee!
I don’t know anything about bees nor do I know anything about how to keep them but I just watched a video on how to render the wax and enjoyed it
Looking forward to the wax series. Main goal aside from honey was wax candles eventually!
You can buy 1 lb. of beeswax filtered for 8-10 dollars per pound. Unless you have a bunch of hives you will not make a ton of wax so you will have to supplement your own wax supply. I only keep 5 hives continuously and I buy about 10lbs of wax/year to make candles and lip balm for gifts. I buy cosmetic grade beeswax for lip balms. Another way to make candles is to buy wax foundation and wick string and roll the wax sheets into candles.
Frame wax can be sorted to brood/bad wax and the honey wax that is the best quality iirc.(only second hand knowledge)
I just learned this summer about the paint strainer used when melting wax down. Very smart idea. Helps a lot. I figured with my dirty wax that doesn't want to clean up well, I'd use it to rub onto new frames. Hope it works anyway. Good video.
I've never heard of boiling water discoloring the wax. Maybe I've been lucky but I've never had any discoloration. I put a few inches of water in a big pot then throw all my wax in it and bring it to a boil until everything is melted. I pour the wax through a colander over a bucket to get the majority of the stuff out. I usually let it sit for a day or 2 them dump the bucket and scrape the fine sand and crud from the bottom of the block. I will render that block down again and put a flour cloth towel in the colander to catch anything else. After doing that the wax is perfectly clean. I will do my cappings as after I extract the honey and leave that wax separate. I will do another block of burr comb and old frames. I put the burr/brood comb block in an old crock pot to melt down and I paint it on new plastic foundations. I pour my cappings wax into 1oz and 1lbs pound blocks.
I do the same thing. I use a kitchen strainer and that's it.
By repeatedly melting and pouring off the top using a candle pouring pot the wax gets cleaner and cleaner until it's pure without filtration. The crud stays in the bottom of the pouring pot.
I found way too much wax is lost when using a paint strainer or cheese cloth. You'll net more wax by pouring through a stainless steel mesh sieve (at least, that has been my experience). Love your videos! I enjoyed watching this one. Wishing your bees the best of success!! 🐝🐝🐝☮️☯️
Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a shot in the future.
Soap, chap stick, candles, nice stuff
I pore mine through a paint strainer and that flows through an old tee shirt into a bucket with tapered sides. That tee shirt materiel catches the fine junk really well. The tapered sided bucket makes getting a thick block of wax out much easier than something with strait sides. I cut a 5 gal bucket bottom out. I set a 5 gal bucket on a sheet of plastic. I put the tee shirt material over the top then stick the bucket with the bottom cut out into the top of the first bucket which holds the tee shirt material in place. Then I put the paint strainer over the top of the top bucket. When the wax is melted just pore it through the strainer, let it drip out for a little while then lift out the strainer bag with the crap in it. Then pull apart the buckets and take out the tee shirt material with the fine crap. Then just let it cool with something over your bucket in case some bees are feeling suicidal.
I bet that smells wonderful!
It does.
@@vinofarm do the different types of wax you collected differ in smell?
Hey Jim. Dont you use your old wax and a paint brush to coat your foundation that you just scrapped? I do a couple of coats on my foundation, the bees will use this to build out new comb faster. It is bees wax recycling. Give some wax back to the Bees!
I've never done it because so far I've bought all my foundation pre-coated. Those are the first frames I've ever scraped bare. I will clean them up and definitely re-coat with some of that wax.
I started brushing more wax onto my prewaxed plastic foundations this year. I found that they build out the comb quicker on the frames with extra wax.
If you simply add all 3 lots together, melt and strain, that should clear up mostly after 1 melt.
When you do 3 separate melts like you did to demonstrate, then no. It quickly becomes not worth the trouble. Your ability to process more wax, for less time is key.
We have a big 50 Ltr pot with a tap almost at the bottom, this allows us to continually melt and pour as it becomes too full. I do enjoy seeing your content. keep up the good work =D
Sam
This was more of an experiment for the video... Still, I was surprised to see how little wax was actually in the comb. Thanks for the comment.
@@vinofarm oh I totally get your purpose! was actually great to see your results, was very interesting.
Thanks for the video. Nice job. There are other ways to process wax for the small beekeeper. Now that you have the pot (nice size for just picking up on the side of the road), you're almost there. Find a long cylinder type of colander, the kind used for spaghetti. Melt down the wax and then submerge the colander in the wax. The wax pulls through the screening leaving the junk (slum gum) behind. Take a cheap dollar store ladal and scoop the wax out and into a small plastic bucket with water on the bottom. You can take out the colander and melt more wax without wasting time pulling the slum gum (which still has wax in it). Add the colander again and just keep doing that. One clean out and your pretty much done. Now you can melt the wax and filter it through a which sweat shirt. The left over slum gum goes into a home made solar wax melter for a future melt down.
Easy peasy.
I'm a fourth year beekeeper and I now run a plastic-free apiary; which means my bees, honey or wax never comes in contact with any plastic at all; wax foundation, stainless steel and glass jars. I use dish rags from IKEA as a strainer and they work very well also. Just boil the rags en-mass afterward to separate the gunk and rouge wax from the towels. Works well.
I saw Dirtrooster render his wax through a ladies pantyhose. It seemed to work. I really enjoy your videos!
I use an old clean pillow case to filter the wax, all done in one shot, gives nice clean wax.
A beekeper I know lets her wax solidify in empty juiceboxes. If you have a relatively narrow column of wax rather than a thin big disk, there is a lot less layer to scrape off at the end.
Watching this with interest, as if it’s something I could use. All I need now is some bees
The best filter material that I have found for dirty rendered wax is a cheap paper towel.
For smaller amounts I use a solar oven. I get a glass casserole dish and put a frame with a screen in it over the dish. I then put paper towel on top and put the wax on that. The paper towel does all the filtering.
Vino farms. One of my favorite beekeeping sites. We have learned so much from you! Thank you!
Amazing ! Thanks for making this video. The paint strainer bags are a fantastic idea. Great time saver and mess reducer . Hello from Australia. I will be doing this tomorrow using stuff that I got from friends who keep bees.
Similar to how I do it in a 55gallon drum. I tie bricks to several brewers bags of wax and boil it on a turkey fryer. The key is to make sure the water level is high enough that the bags won't harden on the bottom of the block.
I appreciate your video so much. I went though probably about 10 looking for exactly what you provided in a straightforward way. I’m going to embrace your pro tip paint things. I got cheese cloth but that was hard to find in person but there’s a Home Depot very near me. I was given remnants of a hive when I was looking for clean, golden wax. I make candles and lotion/body butter with beeswax so I’m familiar with its properties but I’ve never worked with this stuff. I’ve got my first batch cooling for about 20 more minutes. Very curious to see how much wax it will yield. Using the water was such a shocker for me at first but of course…I think beeswax is pretty waterproof. I just thoroughly enjoyed the way you presented this. It was fun! Love all of your commentary. Thanks, again.
You Can get the pot really clean, if you use mineral spirits. That's what they use to clean pysanky eggs which use beeswax to resist serial dyes. Works a treat.
Great video on rendering bee wax❗ Thanks for all the information ❗
From Orangeville, Wyoming County NY
Great video I like the paint strainer I use old pillow cases
I would use the dirty wax on your hives you use to try and catch wild bee. Form it into a crayon type of thing an rub on the boxes. I imagine that bees would like the smell and it would waterproof the boxes. (not a beekeeper, so I can't say how useful that idea really is)
Billie Maier I’ve seen on TH-cam that there are beekeepers that do this! Nice tip!
You can also make your own foundation sheets.
I could... but I generally use plastic foundation, so I will probably use the wax to re-coat the frames I scraped.
Hi Jim, being a noobie I usually melt it in a crock pot. The last small batch I just melted it in a small non-stick pot that I got cheap at the second hand store. I think the few frames I extracted I got 1lb of nice clean wax. I melted it down and poured it in a paper towel roll. I have one big wax crayon now to coat some plastic foundation. I have some on order so the wax will come in handy. I think the extra wax helps encourage the bees to build out faster but more importantly straight and flush. I hate crazy comb..... I used a crock pot as well and it works great.
Crock pot method sounds good. I just used what I had on hand. Thanks for the comments!
I do like the aroma of beeswax. It's quite appetizing.
Oh yes!
I haven't looked through the comments and someone may have suggested this already. I would agree that rendering down frames etc is harder work and produces a lot junk. However someone suggested something and it has worked amazingly well. Get a very large muslin cloth or bag to line the pan. Stick all your crap in and pour boiling water on. Keep adding and heating as necessary. Once done add a clean stone to weigh down and tie off with string (rubber gloves required). Then sink it under the surface and keep heating for a bit more. Hens love the grubs and you get pretty clean wax and the cloth is clean ish for reuse
I've been thinking of a smallish solar melt box. Filtered through paper towels. Just toss in scrapings and old funky chunks. Let the sun do the work.
Thank you. Love all your content.
Freezing the comb first then breaking it apart yields more fine flakes that seperate easier
4:59 that stuff is worth keeping for starting campfires.
@Vino Farm Solar Ovens (Same principle as the wax melter) work in winter, especially if the outer shell is well insulated. The way it functions even in the cold is because glass is mostly Opaque to UV, so it works by absorbing UV light and re-emitting it in infra red (heat).
So if you have an inner wood shell (painted black) and outer foam shell (painted black) and a window made of glass it will work (add any type of seal, like foam tape, around the window for increased efficiency). And if the oven gets too hot in summer you can make the foam shell in a way that it can be separated from the wood casing.
Inside the oven place a metal sheet with a slight fold to drain the wax towards the middle, create a funnel by folding up the bottom part, add a metal mesh between the folds and put some paper towel over the mesh to filter the wax. Tilt the whole device to help with drainage, put a container to receive the wax and VOILA! It can be rigged on a lazy Susan to rotate to face the sun and you can find a way on TH-cam to set it do do it on its own. Search for "Robot Hat PROTECTS You" by William Osman if you wanna take it to that extreme :)
For some sources on efficacy and melter plans just search "do solar ovens work in the winter" and "JC bees Homemade Solar Wax Melter" on TH-cam. This should be all the info you need to make your own "Super Efficient Self Orienting Solar Wax Melter" or SESOS-WM for short LOL.
I'm not going to lie... Even reading what you just typed (let alone building it) seems like a lot more work than just boiling water in a pot. I do appreciate the comment. And it might be something I try next summer. I just can't see how any device could heat up to 145+ºF when the outside temperature is barely above freezing. I don't know where you live, but it's very cold here and the sun never gets too high in the sky until about May.
@@vinofarm I live in Quebec... temperature can drop to -40 Fahrenheit, its COOLLD up here lol. with the sources I provided you, you can determine whether its worth it for you or not :)
@@arendey4446 Have you used a solar melter in Quebec in the winter????
@@vinofarm Personally? No, I haven't, but I did some digging around, there's quite a few example on TH-cam itself and even a cursory search in google shows it works as well. So I don't have an effective range of temperature I can give you at this moment (I'd have to do some digging). The key is the amount of sunlight going through the glass (it has to be actual glass AFAIK, not plastic) not ambient heat.
I did find this: Searching in google for "solar oven effective temperature range in winter" gave me this answer: *Even in the middle of winter the solar cookers reach 300 F and above, thus enabling me to cook a quick lunch while I am busy doing other things.* (I like researching stuff lol)
Will a hand crafted one reach those temperatures? I dunno. But with a black insulated shell and seal around the glass, You are likely to be able to melt wax .
The intent was to show you it is possible to actually get enough heat to cook food (and by extension melt wax) even when the temperature outside is cold enough for snow. Whether you want to try to build one or not is up to you. :)
I encourage you to do some research, confirm for yourself what I have found. Just the potential to avoid a waxy mess in my kitchen seems worthy of a bit of looking around.
Definitely makes me have even more respect for it all. I would love to keep bees and I wanted to start making bees wax candles. I definitely have a whole new appreciation for it all
when I done bees with my father we use to render all the wax yes boil and filter many times but it worked
I like how you think. Very orderly and organized!
I make it seem that way on the videos!
I found that a 75 micron nylon mesh worked the best for the final render. It is very fine but the wax still goes through fast enough, coffee filters didnt work and they are 20 micron. First render use a more coarse nylon mesh.
I discovered on amazon they sell nylon "rosin" bags. I am going to try these next year as they are small, food grade and seem very cheap ~1$ a bag. Note I dont use pot never have not even sure what rosin is.
Also search for "The press club"
@@jonathanswoboda aren't those bags tiny? as in 1 inch?
@@jo-han They sell 3"x6" and 4"x7", I melt my wax then pour it into the filter.
Pretty sure rosin is tree sap? Used on violin bows etc
Great tip on the paint strainers! Friends give me wax but it isn't strained.
How I would label your four years as a beekeeper
Year 1: Awkward
Year 2: Still awkward but getting better
Year 3: The year of splits
Year 4: My gosh so many swarms
Keep up the good work. In the past few years I see you as a pro and I remember that your only 4 years in
Thanks for watching! And thanks for the support!
@@vinofarm ah no problem. It's been fun watching all the stories of Balboa and the Frankennuc
Haha for me I'd be
1. Lucky
2. Splits, thought I was good but really just lucky
3. Year of swarms, swarms, swarms
4. Died in winter 😭
5. New hive died in winter 😭
Now seriously trying to figure out what is happening to keep next year alive 🤔
Thank you so much for sharing this video, I learned a lot.
Interesting. So I'm thinking two things would help if we can figure out where to get them. 1) A pot liner -- maybe food grade silicone, maybe you'd need a double boiler. 2) some kind of open ended silicone form that floats on the surface and lets the wax form into more manageable chunks than giant cakes.
My uncle brought me some honey comb, after "juicing" the honey from it, he used the rest of the comb could be used to make beeswax...so now I'm here!
...another wonderful, entertaining and VERY informative video! I was looking forward to this one since the last video was posted -and it was worth the wait! Thank you for such an in depth and instructive video. Please keep this excellent content coming! ...and how do I get a hold of some Vino Farm honey...?! ;-)
Thank you! Great video
Awesome lesson! Happy holidays!
Thanks for the wax rendering! Let us know how the honey sales get set up. I'm buying!
Have you ever tried using a double boiler to melt the wax? No waiting for the wax to solidify so you can remove it from the water. Support the filter with a frame and pour the melted wax through the filter. Pour the filtered wax into small metal molds, such as ice cube trays with aluminum foil dividers, to radiate the heat away and solidify the wax sooner. This should yield small chunks of beeswax that you would not need to break up, and the chunks would melt faster when you are ready to use the wax.
Awesome video! you can also you cheese cloth. It is a little cheaper and you can get huge squares that you can shape to different sizes and dimensions.
I used cheese cloth until I discovered paint strainers last year. Not going back! The strainers are $1 each and I only use one or two per year.
Jeff Birchoff (Mr Ed) uses the gross wax for laying wax onto his plastic foundations, for the bees to draw out. So if it’s not useable for cosmetics or candles, use it for the bee foundations.
Sorry, Jeff Horchoff
This was so good and helpful in understanding about different kinds of beeswax rendering.
I use a large crock pot purchased from Value Village. Cost me $9. No open flames and so much safer.
Crock pot is a good idea. I just don't have one so I used what I had.
@@vinofarm next time you are into town, go to any store that takes donations and resells. Used crock pots dominate the electrical cooking equipment for sale. I have a mini one for remelting for lip balm. A larger for the first meltings.
Very nice thank you lots to learn.
I use a Turkey roaster then strain with the fine gravy strainer. Probably about 3X and it’s pretty clean.
As a seamstress, I need to get my hands on some of that wax, it feels so strange to pay for beeswax to wax my thread with when I know theres so much of it out there with beekeepers!