Fast and EASY way to render Honeybee wax | Cappings or brood comb
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2024
- After extracting it's time to melt and clean your wax cappings. I have done it a few different ways. This new trick is pretty helpful in speeding up the cleaning process.
Love this type of information, and you share it all so clearly. Thank you. I am curious... when cutting off the caps, why do you cut up first?
Thanks for the kind words. I cut up first because when I would start at the top my knife would try to dig into the frame. It just seems to work better for me.
Here’s an idea: if you weigh down the nylon stocking with rocks or something heavy before putting the wax and slum in it, you’d be able to make it sink in the water. The wax would melt in the hot water and float to the top. The solids would stay in the stocking in the water with the rocks. This way you’d only have to render this stuff once!
After rendering you’d be able to pour off the wax layer and stop once you hit the water layer, and have clean filtered wax. Maybe something to try?
The big box stores sell "Elastic Top Paint Strainers" for pretty cheap. They are made to fit over a 5 gallon bucket and thats what I filter all my honey though. It would work the same for straining the wax as well. I don't know many nylon socks that are designed to fit over a stock pot or a bucket.
Thank you! I was thinking there had to be a simpler way to render wax, this is perfect!
There are so many ways. This one seems to work well for me.
My wax melting/processing problems went away when I built a solar melter. With the right filtering I get pure wax from the nastiest comb.
I've considered making one. Just haven't gotten there yet.
lmao BEE KEEPING 101 ~ Never render wax, or honey in your kitchen , that stuff get every where ~ do things in your bee shed or shop! ~ Keep it out of your house! 🤣 They can smell it and target your house. Next you will be fighting your bees, in and out of your home > and they will remember it to, and keep coming back
I have just gotten interested in bee-keeping, if not for your comment I would DEFINITELY have made this mistake! Thank you!
@@schoo9256 WTG also a beehive is like a 1st Aid station. There bee stings, honey, propolis. Does a lot of thing to cure sickness. It fight infections. colds, all sort of things. ect. Thank bud > enjoy your bees Happy Holidays
They can even send you into shock and make you get an adrenaline, and epi shot.
@@coltenbustos7114 Yes👍👍 to many stings1st signs are? Being dizzy, and weak filling. Better fine away from them FAST
I’ve used paint strainer mesh pretty effectively.
Good information - thank you!
Gave me an idea for loading the nylons - a 2' or so piece of 4" PVC with a pvc coupler to hold the nylon onto the pipe.
Good video that helped me a lot. Thanks for putting in the time/effort to make it.
thanks for the info. am going to try my first rendering with 5 gallons of wax.
Good luck!
What you need is a deep double boiler setup. Heating the lower boiler of water and letting the heat from that heat the upper boiler makes sure nothing in the upper boiler gets scorched. Then you put your stockings or pillowcases of burr comb in the bottom of the upper boiler with some weights on the corners of the fabric to hold them at the bottom of the space, and fill it with water so they're well covered. As it simmers, all the wax will melt and float to the surface, leaving only non-soluble stuff inside the fabric. The water will still be filthy with everything either soluble or small enough to get out of the fabric, so the underside of the wax will be dirty too and need further cleaning - but none of the wax will have been wasted. You can give the solids left in the cloth to your chooks or the compost bin and know you haven't lost a single drop of wax in them.
Thanks, great info... seems simple enough.
Great video, I'm new to beekeeping in South Australia and I've just done my first harvest from one hive and was wondering how the Heck I was going to render down the wax, this has given me ideas of what to do! Thanks! OOOoooo and I just subscribed on 12 March 2022
Thanks for the sub and good luck with the bees! There is so much to learn. I'm still learning all the time.
I use 10 litre painting strainers to put wax in simalar to stockings. You can get 4 litre ones to
Once the wax is in the hose, you need to place them into a deep fryer filled with water, the wax will melt and then you place some ting heavy to keep them on the bottom. Once it cools, all the wax will rise and the slum gum will be on the bottom. And hopefully, you dont have a layer of slum attached to the wax round.
The roaster you're using is not the best tool for this. Its best for melting wax before you roll it onto the frames.
I know this isn't the best tool for the job but it still worked pretty well.
The story time at the end caught my attention and I have a cautionary tale to tell. I had been stung several times since beginning bee keeping, without much reaction other than swelling, redness and itching at the site. However, WHERE you get stung can make a huge difference, as evidenced by this gentleman's reference to the sting on his temple. One day I was stung on my hand while watering some plants on the opposite side of the yard. The skin on my hand is very thin and the sting was just above a prominent vein. Your hand, like your scalp and face, is a very vascular place (meaning dense capillary beds) so the bee venom is taken up into your blood stream very fast. Within minutes I was experiencing the classic symptoms of anaphylaxis. The palms of my hands and soles of my feet began to itch. By the time I got into the house and took 50mg of Benadryl, my heart was racing (because my blood pressure was dropping), the mucosa of my mouth began to itch and tingle, my lips began to swell and I knew I was in some real trouble. By the time I was able to dial 911, my vision was all but gone due to the pupils of my eyes dilating to the point every thing was a blank white field, with a narrow ring of sight around the edges. I also have asthma and, in addition to the Benadryl, I used my rescue inhaler, but in the ambulance still began to have difficulty breathing. Working around bees is serious business and, in my opinion, only a moron approaches a hive full of bees without protective clothing, but you see videos all the time of people who cavalierly wear nothing in the way of protection. It doesn't make you more professional, just more at risk. Although you may not have problems now, allergies tend to develop due to exposure to allergens and you never know when the next sting will be the one that gets you a lights-and-siren ride to the ER. I was lucky. I now have an epi pen in my suit pocket and my cell phone right next to it any time I am working with my bees. Ironically, severe allergies, like Hay fever, etc, are often treated with de-sensitization therapy, which exposes a person to increasing amounts of the offending agent, so his comments about his reactions diminishing over the summer is correct also.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. Sounds like a scary moment. I'm glad you were thinking quickly and that you are still with us!
Sobering tale, thank you for sharing and stay well
Very helpful information. Thank you!
Now to get the spare room just for processing frames and honey.
That would be great 👍
They sell paint filters that fit 5 gallon buckets
Nice trick with the nylons. Your wax may be getting over heated in that cooker. Too much heat will reduce the nice aroma and darken the color. Cheese cloth works great as well.
For the longest time, i was afraid of using woman stockings. Afraid it would melt. Yes Nylon stocking will filter > hot bees wax and honey as well ~ Use steam on a cheese press. Press the stocking of wax ~ get about every bit of it - You can get steam machines every where all different sizes
Thank you!!! I'm about to try that.
It worked pretty well for me. Good luck!
Great instructions... thanks bunches
No problem. Thanks for watching!
I use the panty hose method too, and do it twice too, and then do the scraping under the wax cake whilst it’s still slightly warm, it’s easier than when it’s totally cold.
Good information.
Thank Ya !!! Great Info !!!
Thanks for watching!
you may want to build a warming box to heat up the capping to extract more honey. I use a 5 gallon bucket with honey gate I Leave the honey gate open and place a quart canning jar to harvest more honey. The more you cut up comb the better it works
I like your uncapping tank more info please, How much & where I could get one etc. Thank You, very informative post.
I had a local Omish guy make it.
You're supposed to melt the beeswax and then pour it. Through the Stocking. while it's still liquid.
I've done it that way. I like this way better.
Use queen size. You could also use a 6 inch x 2 foot pocket pipe for your stuff sacks. You could also use a laundry bag.
If you really want to strain something, you can buy stainless steel laboratory sieves that go down to very fine apertures. Unlike fabric, you know they're never going to have lint or melt if they get too hot, and you can get them perfectly clean just by putting them in the bottom of a pot of water and boiling it.
Think I'll stick with my steamer, lot less mess ☘️🇮🇪👍👋
Steamer sounds pretty nice.
i just use a paint strainer bag. works great.
I've heard that they work well.
I will the solar wax melter out of a cooler what type of a refrigerator drawer where the reflector or glass and a pair which I put a few holes in and killed it it got that from Dollar General in a bread pan to catch the clean wax works great
I ball up the wax as much as I can before putting it into cheesecloth. Stronger. I use stockings as a final filter. Stretch it over a smaller container or a plastic 16 or 32 oz container and our the wax through to let the wax cool. It's a messy process. You really need to be able to squeeze the slumgum inside the cheesecloth to get all the wax out. Be sure to separate the nasty from the good. Nasty wax is green when you are done.
I hate that scum on the bottom of the wax blocks. Wish there was a way to get that out before it dries. I guess you could strain it again but I always get that layer as well.
how about deeper water and a rack to hold the wax/nylons on the bottom and let the clean wax float to top? appreciate a no drama video
That sounds like a good plan. I saw a video that someone had a deeper pan (like a turkey fryer) that they did that with.
Sir, as I am not into honeybees(I hope to bee) Maxant has a spinner that gets all the out, then melt the wax.
Oh, I know. I don't have the maxant wax spinner money, though. Lol
Was thinking that you could possibly stuff the first part of the wax into the panty hose, and place that into the water, and then once they melt down, you could keep on stuffing, so you could heaps more wax in?
I’m always amazed at how wax melts down to hardly any space.
That mint work too. I was really amazed at how well it worked.
Fun to watch 😊
try PVC pipe to hold your stocking
I built a solar melter out of a hole Styrofoam cooler in a glass top on the refrigerator compartment with a pan from Dollar General with a punch some holes in the wax melts out and goes in my bread pan below
Eazy peazy.
I tried panty hose….for the “Slum Gum””….but it does not work as good as the paint strainers from Lowe’s….And…cheaper….and they don’t run….besides….every thing you use wastes some of the the wax….each application takes a toll on the filtered wax….
late to the game, but 5 gallon paint strainer is definitely the way to go, and is reusable a few times at least. i just use a crock pot right now, but i've also noticed that if i leave the lid off, or just partialy on the wax disk will crack just about every time. leaving it on all the way will give you a nice uncracked disk. i think if it cools too fast thats when you get cracks.
Great tip! Thanks!
Whats cooking? Thats one big messy process. Heres an idea skip all those extra steps and use that black pan as your base for a solar melter. Use that miter saw to build a frame box so can tilt that pan in it. Then drill some tiny holes in one side of the pan and make sure to place a paper towel in that corner as your fine filter. Lastly add a catch pan for your clean wax and put a glass top cover on the whole melter and put it in the yard to catch some rays.😆🐝🍻✌🏽
Doing great but just a little point for you I noticed your water an wax was boiling in your crockpot. If you are not careful with the boiling it will scorch your wax an turn it real dark . Hope this helps you out and good luck .
That’s awsome. What’s the tool you use to melt down the wax? And the water ratio or does the water ratio not matter? Thanks
The water ratio doesn't really matter. You just want enough to let the wax float above the dirt and not enough to overflow your bucket. I'm using an electric turkey roaster. I got it at Salvation Army. It was a great find! Thanks for checking out the video and good luck!
I’d have just melted that dark wax and then tipped it into the pantyhose to filter
Thank you, I am in Australia and was wondering what do you call that large electric pan you used?
It's called an oven roaster. Most people use them to roast whole turkeys.
There is always a bit of wax left.
Next time you try to strain your nasty wax with panty hose, melt your wax the way you used to do in your pots. Then put your panty hose stretched over a 6" or 8" piece of pvc pipe (the size of a lady's leg) that is 3' tall. Then pour your wax through the panty hose in one shot. It keeps the wax melted and allows it to all go through but strains all the junk out.
The pvc is a great tip 👍 I was thinking about a cylinder of some sort, but I didn't have anything on hand.
What temp is your crock pot set at?
Great video thank you
It's set at 400° F, which is probably hotter than it needs to be.
Great video! What brand of pan/skillet are you using for cooking the wax down? I can’t tell if it’s an electric skillet or crockpot. That seems like a really good size and much better than a tall stock pot. Can you share the brand and dimensions or maybe where to find a similar one? Thanks so much! 12:19
It's a Rival 16 quart roaster oven. I bought it at the Salvation Army used.
If you had a centrifuge with thin mesh sieve it would do great
Do u have to add water to the pan before putting the wax in to render Dow if so how much
The water allows for separation of the wax from the dirt and debris. I would use at least a gallon, depending on the size of the container or the amount of wax.
Why are there so many dead bees? I never have this many.
Why dont you just melt everything and use the stockings as a filter instead of just filling them with dry stuff?
JA below beat me with the comment of solar wax melting. I used one for years when I had bees. They are so simple to construct out of scrap stuff it's not funny. I used an old window on top of a box angled to the ground with a filter material getting courser towards the bottom and gives nice clean wax and you chuck the filter stuff away. There are sure to be ideas on YT. In fact look for 'solar wax melter plans'.
I’m curious if you could stretch the nylons over a container with no bottom and stuff them with wax that way. Similar to how they fill a sand bag.
I bet you could. Just need the right size container and nylons.
Is that water you put the cappings in
Yes
What do you do with the beeswax after you render it down.
Melt the wax. Then pour it in the panty hose. Filters better. Stretching the panty hose let's more junk through.
Makes sense
I wonder if a laundry wringer would help? And maybe a cheese cloth? I don't know But perhaps its worth a shot😁
id imagine nylons would impart coloring to a liquid when its heated, im not sure but i wouldnt be shocked if it did. if you had a metal screen, that was a millimeter smaller all the way around than your cooking container, you could add all the dirty wax, and water. Then heat it, and at the end put the slightly smaller metal screen on top, and push down like a french coffee press. it would push all the detritus to the bottom, separating the wax & allow you to remove filtered wax from the top of the screen.
Bee's Knee Highs!
I had a friend who swore that getting stung cured his arthritis. He’d go out to the hives and, I swear, rile them up just sos they’d sting him.😅
what temperature is your pot set at?
What temp do you set your electric oven at?
What do you mean "wet boxes" why does it kill the bees?
A wet box is a box with extracted frames, containing residual honey. Traditionally you give them back to the bees to clean up. If they are returned above the brood box and crown board, the bees will rob it out quietly. If you just put them out for all the bees, it becomes a free for all and bees get killed in the rush as they also fight each other in the process.
Once the residual honey is licked out, then your 'wet supers' have become 'dry supers' and storage is a lot easier. I put a travel screen at the bottom of a stack of overwintered supers and a screen or ventilated roof on the top so that the air could get to ventilate the stack so that there would be no mould or mildew forming and mice etc. were denied access.
Hope that answers our question OK. It's the bees and wasps that kill each other not the boxes of frames per se.
Throw a lot of paper money into a busy crown at the shopping mall and see how organised it remains - not for long. Bees are just like women at the Christmas sales looking for that bargain of a lifetime. No one really expects to get trampled, but they can become savages. Another reason for using the paint strainer - you know the full price of the paint strainer bags, but do you really know how much hidden cost there will be if your wife or girlfriend supplies the stocking. Have fun either way. And finally, if it's the girlfriend that supplies the stockings and your wife finds out, then you might wish that you had gone along to the big box store after all. ;-)
Pretty cool. Would any type of hose work, like from the cheaper stores or do you think higher-quality hose would work better?
I think any will work. I think these are from the dollar store. I wouldn't buy really expensive ones.
Best thing to use a 5 gallon paint strainer
I'll remember that and give it a try.
Question...I'm so new to beekeeping that I don't have a hive yet. What do you do with the "slum gum"? Also you were cleaning off the spoon and strainer, were you using just water?
I till the slum gum into my garden. I usually try to clean off my equipment with hot, clean water. Good luck with your new hobby!
I live in Canada and use the slum gum as fire starter, it smells great and works like birch bark
where can I get that knife at 4: 47
I got it at Bass Pro Shop. It's a fish filet knife. It works pretty well.
Why would you do the dirty first?
That's a great question. I thought that afterward. Should've started with the cleaner cappings.
@@TheHunterGatherer He obviously like to do extra cleaning to avoid the contamination that doing the right way arond might have avoided - arguably.
How come the bees weren't attacking each other when getting the honey out the boxes and caps???
They defend the hive but other than that they aren't about fighting.
@@KayAteChef that's actually kinda neat, guess sits not worth the energy to be aggressive
👍🥰
What is the nectar source for honey extracted in October?
In my area on NY is a lot of goldenrod.
@@TheHunterGatherer our last source is Sourwood in NC. We take it off mid-July.
I would use a thick sieve first and use the panty hose at the very ens
Watching a man try to interpret panty hose sizes... 🤣🤣🤣
Hahaha 😆
Taylor John Hernandez Patricia Garcia Barbara
THATS A LOT OF WASPS YOUR FEEDING
that is just a mess.
Your practise of letting the bees clean up the stickies is foolish , and a recipe for disease spreading . It is illegal in every state in Australia , and may also be in America and other beekeeping countries . If you use a barrier system , it is permissible to re-place the boxes on the hive to which they belong , and has the added benefit of keeping your honey in your hives , and not in the feral hive up the road .
LOL NOT fast and NOt easy hahahaha. you fooling yourself.... Heat in a large pot scoop out scrap. Let cool. pour out water scrap remaining crap. filter the rest with paper towel and oven
Keep your caps to feed your bees during the winter.