New Hobby: Bee Keeping

[massphatness]

Soooooooo my first foray into melting bees wax produced unexpected results.

I ended up rendering another pound or so of honey from the wax cappings, but the wax didn't really melt -- it just kind of stayed in semi-soupy form in the melter.

Did some research and found you get much better results if you drain the remaining honey from the wax then rinse the honey comb in cool water to further remove any sweet, sticky stuff.

I bundled up the cappings in cheese cloth and pressed it over a metal strain to squeeze out the last bits of honey then rinsed it as instructed in some cool water.

I was left with some slightly sticky wax globs that I broke apart and put back in the solar melter to see if a second go at it would produce better results.

It was warm, but overcast yesterday -- not much in the way melting took place, and I was a little discouraged.

However, today was bright sun and hot all day. I came home to this:



All the wax had melted leaving behind the impurities on the paper towel filter.

The wax itself looks like this:



There's not a lot, but I didn't expect a lot -- maybe enough for one candle? Not worried - hoping to get a bit more this fall.

Bottom line though, the solar melter works if you prep the wax carefully!