Rendering Beeswax... Worth The Hassle? Let's Find Out!
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 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 RUclips 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
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. 😉
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.
The waste water and gunk can be added to compost
him: “dead bodies..”
me, a non-beekeeper, forgetting this is about bees: oh?
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?
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.
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!
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.
Don't mind me, just a woodworker sneaking around, learning how to melt old wax and make a wood finish..... Thanks!
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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!
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 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.
Frame wax can be sorted to brood/bad wax and the honey wax that is the best quality iirc.(only second hand knowledge)
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
I loved this video. I've been watching your videos and planning to get my first hives next year. I probably would have wasted all the time saving and scraping the rubbish wax so thank you for doing this experiment for us all!
...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...?! ;-)
I saw Dirtrooster render his wax through a ladies pantyhose. It seemed to work. I really enjoy your videos!
Steam extraction will yield much more and cleaner wax. Your "waste" contains twice the amount of wax you get from the boiling process. Steam extraction leaves the waste as a dry, soft granulate with next to no wax in it, and I was very surprised the first time I tried steaming the "waste" in a nylon stocking. You should try it.
solar melter......you get way more wax and the sun bleaches the way to make it nice and white.
No solar melting power in December in Massachusetts... but that sounds nice!
There is a ton a wax in your waste and there is a ton of waste in your wax. Solar melter and paper towels, waste can go in the smoker.
I set my stove on fire when rendering beeswax. Don't let the water boil. 😂
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 RUclips that there are beekeepers that do this! Nice tip!
I do removals professionally - which is to say I have many 55 gal garbage bags of wax to render down. Doing the boiling/squeeze method is good for cappings and even burr comb - but you should get a TON more from your scrapings.
Two things I noticed is that
a) the water level in your post is pretty low. You'll get better results - both in terms of how clean it comes out and in reducing the amount of wax that stays in the "slum gum" if you fill the pot up about 1/2 way
b) your water isn't hot enough. I notice you are able to squeeze the bag with your bare hands - melted wax is HOT - hot enough that you shouldn't be able to do it with your bare hands. Make sure you water stays at 170 (ie. keep the fire on) and get a pair of good rubber gloves to squeeze the bag.
OR... you can let the sunshine do all of your work for you and build a really simple Solar Wax Melter. This is mine:
drive.google.com/open?id=1stJPWj_s9GafCk5hnMBaD6ZcOBX854Ck
I put the wax in the same paint strainer bags you do and just set it in the funnel. In a summer day I can run 5-6 bags through the melter.
Yeah, the wax in a solar melter can come out dirty. The good news is that I can just take the entire chunk of dirty wax and put it in a pot like you use with hot water. No filtering is required as most of the dirt from the wax settles and the clean wax stays on the top.
If you need it clean. If you're just re-waxing frames, the dirty wax works just fine. :-D
Thanks for the tips!
I enjoy everything you post
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
You’re so good at educating in your videos.
The best filter material that I have found for dirty rendered wax is a cheap paper towel.
@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 RUclips 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 RUclips. 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 RUclips 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.
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.
I found that if I put the bucket with the melted wax in a large cooler and let it cool a few days the wax had no cracks in it. I melt then pour the wax and water through cheese cloth and get great results. Then I use the cheese cloth as fire starters when I'm camping.
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...
I use an old crockpot with about 1/2 filled with water, paint strainer lined with a Viva paper towel. Usually don't have to strain twice. Is slower as I have to keep"feeding" the pot as the wax melts. Crockpot is set on low.
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for.....Thank You! 💛💛💛🐝🐝🐝
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!
Great video on rendering bee wax❗ Thanks for all the information ❗
From Orangeville, Wyoming County NY
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.
Melt your dirty bee wax, dip in pineapples several times and use it as a fire starter for your fireplace!
did you mean pinecones DNS?
ah even better idea, I mentioned the junk is still pretty burnable but this is more usefull then just burning it at once.
I think I want to keep wax out of my wood stove and chimney, but that would be good for outdoor fires.
hyfy1970 yep! pinecones
Vino Farm do you think it will mess up you chimney?
Try building one of these, they keep your process a bit cleaner and the wax is a bit cleaner, less processing rounds. ruclips.net/video/z_WSMRC_xlE/видео.html
Sorry I haven't been actively watching your channel but eggplants is back! I remember discovering this channel when you first started :') keep going and I'm turning on notifications lol.
I remember you.
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.
Wow I guess it takes a lot of bees and time to get enough wax for a good sized candle.
It literally takes the bees consuming nine pounds of honey or bee bread to produce 1 pound of wax. Comb is costly for the hive to make, that is why bees clean, polish, and reuse cells over and over if left undisturbed. Many beekeeper's will spin their frames store them and return them to the bees in spring. The bees save time and energy not having to build comb.
Why not make propolis tincture with that “waste”
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.
maybe Maxant will send you the wax tank when they watch this video.
Thanks for the wax rendering! Let us know how the honey sales get set up. I'm buying!
You can also use a turkey roaster instead of the stove
I bet that smells wonderful!
It does.
@@vinofarm do the different types of wax you collected differ in smell?
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.
Soap, chap stick, candles, nice stuff
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.
Make a solar melter you will never regret it you have all winter. Make it large enough to hold your queen excluder you'll never have to scrape another one.
Happy 🐝Keeping!
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.
when I done bees with my father we use to render all the wax yes boil and filter many times but it worked
Jim, just another thought for your rendering....most ovens have a low setting of 170 degrees...why not just put your pot in there overnight? The melted wax on top of the water will keep it from evaporating and you can just wake up to a nice pot of melted wax...pull the paint strainer and then let cool.
That might be another solution. I was more interested in seeing how much each type of wax yielded and I'm too impatient to wait that long.
I use a crock pot and a steel fine screen, it works. First lesson i learned is separate your wax before melting it. That way wax capping is the cleanest wax
Fun video with fun music as a new beekeeper I appreciated watching all of this
This is so interesting.
I saw another video on rendering beeswax (which actually seemed less wasteful),
and in that video they filtered the semi-cleaned wax through paper towels
(which were then cut in pieces and stored for use as fire starters),
and this makes me wonder two things:
1 if not the "gunk" from the scrapings still contains quite a lot of wax
2 if not the "gunk" from the scrapings could be used as fire starters as well
at least at home (the gunk balls are not as flat and "carriable" as sheets of paper).
Edit: Sorry, the fire starter gunk idea was not very original, haha.
Ps. Use that "Slum Gum" . . .
Add that really Leftover (Icky) Slum Gum Debris to some Warm Linseed Oil, Strain again. Add a bit of Turpentine, and you have DIY "Wood Polish." 👍 More Wax to Linseed Oil and a bit of either Coconut Oil, or Olive Oil, and you have Leather Treament for Saddles, Shoes, Bags, (even full true leather Car Seats. (Ttry an unseen area for a Tester ! Re colour fast or not. . .)
Both can be poured into Clear Lidded Jam Jars (Must Label NOT Food !)
Or add that Leather Treatment to a Medium Depth Lidded Tin.
Use either :
On a Lint Free Cloth. To buff up a lovely Shine on your Project or Item needing that super Wax Nourishment ! 😎
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Happy Beekeeping 2023.
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Add that same Slum Gum end stuff to your Compost Heap and it will break down too. 👍
"This water can get tossed" 4:35 Not down the drain, right?
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.
Thank you. Love all your content.
Watching this with interest, as if it’s something I could use. All I need now is some bees
Watched your video - a good presentation - a small suggestion - find a much larger vessel, place a layer of small pebbles or rocks in bottom of vessel, place all your wax for rendering in the paint bag as you showed, place in the vessel and weigh it down with bricks or large rocks, fill the vessel with water 5-6 inches (or more) above the bricks or rocks - render soft and low as you described - after wax has set and cooled, remove and pour out the water outside - lift out your bag of debris and you will find it soft and crumbly - feed it to the chickens, spread it out far from the perimeter of your home for the birds or late night scavengers, or compost it - you will have recovered every last bit of wax and not deal with hard messes to clean up - you can also add in to the filter bag any saved sludge or used paper or cloth filters - you can recover any remnant or residual wax from those as well - you will only need to rinse or wash the filter bag to use repeatedly
I have just spent hours trying to render wax WITHOUT looking at your video--what a mistake. After watching I think "I'm on it...!"
I wonder how much cleaner it could be if you strain it through a piece of fabric after the first "rough" straining; could use an old shirt or maybe find something in the dollar store really cheap
Maybe I am just crazy, but I would put the cappings in a pot without water and heat slowly (preferably au bain marie) and recover some more honey. It won't be the normal quality, but it will be good enough to feed back to the bees.
how many hive boxes/ bees do you have to yield this amount? Trying to plan a self-sufficient farm...but I have a candle addiction.
I am just now looking at getting into bee keeping and looking at your waste I have to wonder, if you leave this near the hive wont the bees scavenge the waste from the paint filter to rebuild new comb? Similarly, the very thin wax plate you got from scraping frames?
Old food steamer, wax placed in old womens tights (pantyhose) on the top tier, catch the wax as it drips in to the next tier below. We found it a 1 shot hit, perfectly clean wax in 1 go.
Used Lyson Solar Wax melter. I'm a big fan now after a very hot July in NE. Throw stuff in as I clean the frames and it is done.
Still there's a lot of cocoons and I am looking for good ideas on how to use those --- so a vid of some uses might be valuable.
One annoying problem with the Lyson Solar was melter is they used pressed metal pans to catch wax, which rust with the inevitable bit of honey and moisture left in the slumgum. Also they did a dumbass thing about fixing the slumgum pan with a long pin that requires one to dick around with it to remove the pan.
Actually you do have to boil the wax in a pressure pot at 15psi for no less than 45 minutes to sterilize it, if you use that wax in the future, especially for skin care.
I wonder if that's the reason my lip butters didn't turn out great using local beeswax I purchased. It was so different from the ones using beeswax from my online supplier.
Couple points to your thought, first, the different wax you purchased before this latest one don't guarantee what I explained about sterilization, one don't know how supplier emphasize on getting ready of the absorbed miticides (a form of pesticides that killes varroa mites) in the wax they sell; second, for sure, the local beeswax you purchased was not processed right, not that the beekeeper had bad intention, like Jim here, hobby beekeepers don't understand in depth that part of beekeeping, proof is that just by not squeezing proper the wax, he wasted a good portion of the wax and, the leftover (garbage stuff) is the best compost you can ever buy, in Europe that has value.Most beekeepers stop at the rendering the wax in a block of wax, may it be they strained few times to give it the clean "color" they assume wax should have and not go further and sterilize their wax for consumer's use or their own wax foundation production.In our apiary, we separate thru a queen excluder the white capping of the honey supers from the cappings of honey from the brood boxes that we might eventually extract or rotate frames, hence melt the wax for reuse, the white capping off the super boxes is has extremely high value for us, for hand cream and lip balm production, that is the only wax we use for that part of our business.Once the wax is sterilized, the texture and malleability fills completely different(no matter if that wax is the white capping or more dirty look of the brood wax), the smell is a true wax smell, and of course, you got out all the carcinogen potential thru miticides in the form of oxillic acid and formic acid, imbedded in the wax.My main reason for rendering my own wax is for a healthy queen rearing and healthy bee population, in the beekeeping world, dark wax is rendered often to cycle the wax in the apiary, one of the reason being miticides imbedded in the cradle of the young bees. The propolis does a great job with regards to sterilization of the hive, but not at that micro level in the cell, where the bees do clean the cells but can't reprocess the wax that might've been affected by formic acid for example, that penetrate the capping to kill the varroa mite in the cell itself before the young bee emerge out.I hope me flopping my gums here, helps you in your future decision where to purchase your wax for the products you make.On a side point, my wife has an esthetician licence here in MI and she is the one that heads this part of our business, hence she is the smarts to all I was mentioning above.God Bless.Dan
great video. I've seen a few different methods used to render wax "which have all been mentioned here in the comments" so i suppose its personal choice to which method you use. for me personally i dont like the idea of leaving the rendered wax in just a big round cake. rendered wax poured into bars is much more appealing to be and possibly easier to store or even sell if desired. plus if it is poured into bars then when you go to make something out of it you know how much you have depending on the size of the bars. these would most likely be the ones i would use. www.betterbee.com/candle-molds/rcm16-rubber-beeswax-cake-mold.asp but I'm sure there are better priced options
I'm not selling or displaying this wax so a disc sitting on my shelf doesn't bother me. Also, this is not at the "final" cleaned stage yet, so putting the wax into molds would be a waste at this point. I need to figure out what I'm going to do with it. There will be another melting, probably a pass through a paper filter and at that point be turned into chapstick or balm or something. I may go for the bar molds then. This video really just covered the initial rendering and was meant to be a comparison of the different kinds of wax. I'll do a video in the future when I figure out my final products.
Good video for beginners! You threw away lots of wax from that junk inside the mesh. Believe it or not, there is a lot more wax left over than you think
Hi there I use a solo wax melter. Then I render wax in hot water, to make it ultra clean works pretty good. really old dirty wax looking like new 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.
I use wax to lubricate my hand planes and to seal or finish my woodwork. For the first case, you want to mix the wax with mineral oil (or similar) so that it is soft but solid. Imagine something like a glue-stick that I could rub on tools. In the second case, I want a liquid that is mostly oil. I would rub this on with a rag. The oil penetrates the wood and hopefully takes some wax with it. In the third case I want a paste. The oil is used to soften the wax to make it easy to apply. Think Johnson wax.
You might use olive oil (or similar) for a food-grade finish. But don't sell it as such unless you know there's no bacteria in it.
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 🤔
WhooHoo the first person I have seen using paint socks. Definitely the PRO tip
Part of me wants to take some of that trash from the rendering (the dirty gloppy stuff) and see how well it burns. Definitely NOT for candles, but maybe for fire starters?
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.
You can al always use the old frame wax to recoat your frames. The burr comb and capping you can make either jar candles or candle sticks. Especially if you have a way to make the wax look like honeycomb and roll it around a wick
Hello dear friends.
I want to help.
I'd like wild bee wax.
I forgot, I'm a student and on my way to an in-depth research I wanted some wild bee wax.
I'd like an answer, please.
Is the junk leftover from the wax rendering biodegradable? Could you toss it into the compost pile?
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.
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.
How Id do it differently?
Finish the job.
Thanx for the video.I'd use solar to melt the wax. Id rinse the bottom of the cake and use finer mesh
I could not see real good but it looked like you needed more water in your bucket so there would give more room for your wax to separate in the water From the trash that was in the wax .Also on your second or third melting I do not think you would need your bags the trash would sink to the bottom of the bucket in the water . Keep your video’s coming when possible, Thanks