SHOW & TELL #28 - Melting Bee's Wax

Friday yet again .... which means Show & Tell time at Kelli's . Enjoy mine for today. Then do one of your own and add it to Mr. Linky and then enjoy all the wonderful things people have to Show & Tell.

This is the 4rd post about Mickey's new hobby as a bee keeper. You can read the other three about the actual bee hive and the honey extraction and getting another hive and swarming bees in the post below. This post is about the bee's wax or honey comb.

Here are two tubs of honey comb. Step 1 is putting all the honey comb pieces in a large tub and slanting it so all the honey will drain off. It takes several days to get all the honey to drain off. Step 2 Mickey took these two tubs and placed them in front of the bee hive. The bee's actually work to clean the remainder of the honey out of this comb. Isn't that amazing? They are truly industrious creatures. Step 3 is taking the honey comb and melting it to form a wax. We had been dreading this job, because it was so new to us and sounded complex and there was a huge warning about the danger of the wax catching on fire!!! We knew we had to get this done before leaving on our trip so Monday was the day.

Here is Mickey stirring the comb in a pan in another pan with boiling water. The melting temperature is 180 degrees.

Here is a closer view showing the melting wax, the therometer, and the two water bath pans. We continued to add handfuls of the comb into the pan as it would melt. We ended up with four 1/2 pans full.

Each pan full was then poured into this quart milk carton. The instructions said attach 2 paper towels to the top as a filter. We did this and it was too thick and would not go through. Then we tried 2 napkins. Still no success and all we are making is a mess!!! Finally Mickey said "I wonder if pouring it through a hose would work?" One of the ways you strain the raw honey, after you have first strained it through a normal strain is to pour it through a woman's hose. We got a hose and it worked!!!! This took us about 2 hours and we were both exhausted. I think more from the stress of the operation than anything else. I'm sure it will not be so stressful next time as we know what not to do!!!

Here is our finished product. About 3/4 of a quart of wax. Isn't it the prettiest light golden color? This is all we got from 38 frames of honey A LOT of work. I think I understand now why a lot of bee keepers do not anything with the comb.

You can make candles, hand creams, foot cream, soaps, and lip balm so I have to give it all a try and then decide whether it's something worth doing or not.

This honey comb was from the first extraction that was done on August 23rd. We will have more honey comb from the 46 frames that were done last Saturday, September 20th.

Thanks for letting me walk you through what I find to be a very interesting adventure and learning process.