Cleaning Beeswax
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
- In this video I show how to clean beeswax without the use of a solar melter and get it clean enough to use for cosmetics in just one weekends time. Although I didn't donit in this video, you can prefilter the first runnor two of really dirty wax through a 5 gallon nylon paint filter to keep from needing so many of the fine filters as well. I would have done so here but I forgot to buy any before I was already filming.
my grandfather uses old pillow cases for filters but its cool to see other peoples process
Yes, pillow cases are essentially the same thing as the filters, judt a newer way to do an old timers process for sure!
Are they reusable if boiled/washed? (The pillowcase method)
@@kimboyle2727 they should be. If you poured boiling water through the pillowcases until all the wax is gone you could throw out the debris and wash the pillowcases normally
@@kimboyle2727 IF you enjoy purchasing new washing machines frequently!😲
@@kimboyle2727 it's a matter of getting the wax out...and then, why not? Of course you could go the opposite direction and just make a bunch of environmentally conscious "food savers." Beeswax wraps! Gifts or sale, they can be used, wiped clean and reused for an almost unending time. Just do a youtube search.😁🤝🥳 alternatively, search on Ebay.😘😉🤝😎😁
I’ve only recently started watching bee videos on you tube and I wondered how people got the beeswax to look like this end product. Really informative and Well explained. Thank you for making this.🇬🇧👍🏽
"I forgot to mention that you will attract a lot of bees"
*Camera pans to giant stack of beehives*
Not really, been doing it this way for years and no big issues as this was done during the colder months of the year. It's definitely not middle of summer in the video, lol.
Pron Tron
Ikr?! LMBO!!!!!! I just watched a different video on same thing and he had quite a few bees flying around, some even landed in the hot poured wax waiting to set up, before it could set up :-( , but no hives right there...lol!!! He had about 5 or so, but there had to have been at least 50 bees flying around my guess anyway, by the ability to see many in the video itself without him pointing it out until later.
I like the various uses a person can get out of the wax. I guess if one got one of those Aussie super flow bee hives I think is the name which makes honey harvest super easy but with very little wax for one to use, if one wants honey and wax would need several supers for the hive with the last/top one being for honey the middle and/or 3rd for the wax and the last one or two, the bottom, for the hive only...that would be pretty efficient use of all aspects of working with bees!!
While those will definitely make good fire starters, be careful camping with them. They would still be quite honey scented to animals, so I would keep them stored with food, /away/ from your general backpack contents and clothing, and outside of your tent so bears and other fun critter's don't come poking their nose in.
If you're gonna be homesteading, using your own beeswax from your own hives is gonna save you a LOT of time AND money.
Got a saw that's sharp, but the wood is sappy? Wax that blade!
That "dirty water"? Boil it down to a syrup: make woodstain/preservative if mixed with linseed oil. (Try not to use mineral oil made from petroleum, especially if using to finish wood items). Add some red ochre for that old "barn red" color! (Iron oxide is what red ochre is, that helps preserve the wood, the "goop" is both a delivery system of the iron oxide into the interior of the wood and the dried "stain" is quite water-repellent, you're doing two jobs at once. If you've never seen a cedar deck preserved with this mixture after a year's weathering and "fine-tuning" before staining, it's truly a beauty to behold! Lasts for a loooooong time, too. (Rub some rough beeswax over the -dried! - stain for more waterproofing.) As an aside, a deck my brother built and then treated in this manner; at his then-home in Kent, WA is *still* that beautiful cedar color and water-repellent, even almost thirty years later.
And, just read more comments for other uses for the wax, findings, used filters, etc. Beeswax has been an essential product for human use as long as people have been gathering wild or domestic honey. Burns cleaner and brighter than tallow candles, rushes or oil lamps; waterproofs and beautifies wood and leather; seals and preserves jams, jellies, juices, etc.; and is part of one of the six basic essential food items for the homesteader.
Awesome video and great discussion! Thanks for reading my two cents worth!
I was going to add denatured alcohol to the reduced waste water. What % of oil do you use?
tip: hold on to those filters, roll 'em up and sell pieces as campfire starters.;)
High standards yes, they make excellent fire starters for sure!
High standards my thoughts exactly. I was sitting here thinking "what great fire starters".
haha glad I wasn't the only one who thought that as soon as I saw him say 'oh well about the left over wax in the paper'
Making bee hive
Use them for fire starters in your bee smoker.
You need to buy some stainless steel screening. Use the stainless steel to screen most of the bulk trashes from the wax before using the other filters. Stainless steel screen comes in a wide variety of different mesh sizes and will do a terrific job of filtering out the larger bits of waste.
Also, I have been looking at your waste water. If properly filtered so that most of the bulk materials are removed, then the rest of the water can be boiled and reduced down. The liquid you have left over is a gorgeous reddish hue coloration. Mixed with a strong denatured alcohol, the waste water concentrate would make a fantastic wood colorant . The boiled water concentrate by itself would work, but adding a strong solvent fluid such as denatured alcohol will make it a far better wood stain colorant.
The best part about that, is the boiled color stain is completely and 100% natural, and even adding alcohol to it, it's still a natural staining product for wood. And the best part of it being 100% natural, is that it's also 100% biodegradable, and won't cause serious pollution issues because it can be rapidly broken down and absorbed by nature. Just saying...
JW That's so cool. i didn't even know that was a thing. well i guess i know what im looking up for the rest of my late night RUclips binge
JW I u
Jw do u have a tube channel?
Could you make a video of this or do you have one?
The top half of a double honey strainer or a kitchen strainer from Walmart.
Wow. I had no idea it took that much work to clean wax. Kudos.
Great how to video, I'm going to start using your filtering method. God's peace brother.
Paper towels work just as well for filter paper. I use the waxed paper for fire/smoker starter material.
I do wax cleaning as well but I use steam. It's much more fuel efficient and tidier than all the boiling. I refine the process a bit every year and this year got over 100lbs of cleaned wax and upped my daily first-stage output to 25lbs on a couple of occasions.
I pre-process in a water-filled garbage can using a big drill and paint mixer attachment. This breaks down the comb and washes out heavy stuff and honey.
I use panty hose from the dollar store and stuff the legs with the crushed comb. I use a 4" bit of sewer pipe held in a Xmas tree stand to load the hose. This produces 3-4ft. long sausages that I coil inside a steam juicer (Google for it).
The prefiltered and melted wax goes from the juicer into a warm water bath utilizing and old buffet warmer/server. As the server fills up, I pump the water layer off the bottom and discard it. At the end of the day, I cover the buffet warmer and set it on low overnight. A slow cool allows better settling of fines. I scrape the blocks as you do and store them until all my comb is pre-processed.
At the end of the season and into winter, I use the buffet warmer inside my shop to re-melt the blocks. I skim them with a strainer to get any larger bits that made it through and then ladle the result through the grease filters. I have a similar grease filter holder as yours, but have found the filters bulge out of it too much, so I line it with a cone I made from 1/2" mesh. I also use 2 filters at a time and rotate the dirty one out as it clogs up.
The wax goes from the filters directly into silicone molds (craft or mini cup-cake) and is finished product at this stage.
All my big equipment is used from CraigsList or thrift stores. Filters from restaurant supply houses, molds from a hobby store, kitchen aisle of the hardware store or the thrift store.
Thanks for the paint-strainer idea; I had not encountered those filters before.
My biggest problem now is cleaning the frames. It is very time-consuming and labor intensive. This year I will try a pressure washer arrangement.
If I was cleaning wax on a large scale I would certainly be looking into steam methods. Maybe someday I'll have a need for that kind of a setup.
I cannot wrap my head around a stream method. Maybe make a short post so we can see the general process?
This video gave me the idea. The juicers are expensive but I find them second-hand. I run 3 at a time when I have a lot. ruclips.net/video/w1sl5PraOCA/видео.html
I put my comb in panty-hose too keep the slum-gum from clogging the drain holes inside the pot.
It works much better if the liquid wax drains into warm water afterwards. It will need time to separate properly so you need to cool it slowly.
Keith Green that's ingenious
ruclips.net/video/WbMV9qYIXqM/видео.html&feature=share
Fun to watch, I felt being on a pogo stick at times, jumping from one step to another skipping a step then jumping back, or going from one pots situation to a different pot in a different situation. I think due to your time crunch, it went from an educational vlog to a entertainment vlog. Very entertaining.
Go to a thrift store and buy pillow cases for your filters, they can go straight into your pot and double or triple them. Empty out the debris then boil to clean so you can reuse. this is for the larger pieces of trash then use the filters for the finishing pass, this is so you don't go through so many filters.
i watched this video again, i find the wax extracting process and cleaning very satisfying. Please continu to make this!
nature is so *freakin* awesome.
Wow! it’s amazing that block of wax is from a honeycomb.
Hey, that was an interesting video! One way that I melt wax is with a solar melter. It might be too cold to be practical where you live but I think it is easier than boiling and filtering the wax. I recommend looking up ways to set it up.
Yes, lots of people use solar melters, but when I'm cleaning say 100 frames when it's 40 degrees outside boiling is the best option for me. This video alone made nearly a 14lb block of wax. That's a lot of solar wax melting time. I did this whole video in less than 8 hours. Solar wax melters are good for small batches of wax in the summer though.
get yourself some 5 gallon micron bubble bags filters where the whole bag is a screen pour your hot melted wax water through that, they go from 250 micron down to 25 that should get you some pretty clean wax fast.
Let the chickens go through the remains they adore the leftovers
If only I had chickens I certainly would; they love them
Can you hang a hook into the wax/water so when it cools, you can use it to lift it out and move it around. Don't chuck the water, the colour is great. My granddad used the water boiled down further for wood stain. Boil it right down to a syrup and chuck in some ethanol or isopropyl and some lavender or vaniila bean essence.
You can get some heavy wood blocks and set them on the rim of the pot, then set filtering on top of the blocks, essentially making the pot taller.
I use beeswax in my homemade beard balm (for my SO). If you ever want to trade wax for balm, I'd be more than happy!!! That wax looks amazing! I bet the honey is good too!
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.
now I know why beeswax is so expensive (I like to make candles)
Why trow away the filters, why not cut them and use them as fire starters, thank you for sharing this man!!
This looks SO fun. I’m weirdly relaxed by wax
Looks like a cheese wheel that has already been dipped in wax.
or a wax wheel thats been dipped in cheese
ever tried doing the initial melt in a simple solar oven , lid can be an old window frame of a moderate size , draining pan on a slope and container underneath to catch end result
k great if you have smaller batches of wax or nice warm temps. I made this video in the fall/winter time as you can see. Too cold and windy for me to want to fight with keeping wax in liquid form.
Don't throw away the paper filters impregnated with wax. You can sell them to campers and backpackers as fire starting "tender" a couple of sparks or lighter and it should light right up.
hey man, you should prefilter the big parts out so your expensive filters dont get clogged to much :) have a nice day
I generally will prefilter with 5 gallon nylon paint bucket strainers. I just realized I was out after I was already in the process of doing everything and didn't feel like stopping everything to go to the hardware store. I sometimes make a scoop out of #8 wire and just scoop the big pcs off the top as the pot boils. Didn't want to show that in this video but I do show it in a video I'm about to post up this weekend where I cleaned out some heavily wax moth damaged frames.
The Bearded Bee thank you for the answer :)
i thought about cheese cloth, but a paint bucket strainer is even better!
Get the 5 gallon bags, the 1 gallon are tempting but you will regret it if you are doing a large run... believe me I know, lol!
The Bearded Bee sadly i dont have any beeswax to render, i am just a chemist who likes bees and beekeeping videos, so i know a bit about cleaning and filtering haha. Rendering beeswax is close to recrystalization :)
what about useing cheese cloth
another great filter and cheap too is paper towels. Just fill the grease filter with a couple to seperate the big stuff before you pour it through and then remove and reinstall new towels.
This is a very satisfying video, thank you.
Tip: use a walmart bag as a filter in a 5gallon bucket, you can also squeeze it to get more wax out
Nice. Thank you for showing it. I really enjoyed watching your video. I wanna see how you use those blocks. Like the foundation sheets.
I currently don't make my own foundation. I prefer to go foundationless in my mature hives and use small cell foundation in my nucs until they get enough numbers to handle fiundationless. I do use this wax to coaty foundationless starter wedges with though.
Cotton pillow cases work great!
If you're married, ask your wife to save her old pantyhose to use in place of the nylon strainers. You also might try putting an eye bolt into the wax when it's about half solidified, to lift it out of the pan. The waste can also be used for compost, I've heard.
How to remove wallpaper paste
True and you will get more materiel
Kevin Chamberlain . Are they still in them ?
Presumably some will wear them throughout this procedure, yes.
For second stage filtering, heavy duty paper towel (the center pull kind) can be used in a strainer, cost is next to nothing and saves on finishing filters.
Look at your discount stores for more large pots love watching you would love to try and make candles
I do already make candles in mason jars ;)
It looks beautiful though. I make salve for my husband and myself with yard herbs and bee's wax. I wish I had a way to get the wax, even 'dirty' wax instead of buying it. Thanks for the info. Blessings!
Christie Decker search your area for bee keepers, they might sell or even give you old comb.
I just. Asked on a public forum and got some for free from a guy who had bees move into his shed last year
I bought a huge heavy brick of filtered wax from a beekeeper after doing a facebook marketplace search. it was cheaper than buying it from amazon, and it was local.
I don't keep bees. This was really interesting. Sometime, I see beeswax that is nearly white, not like the gold color you have. The light stuff seems to be harder, also. I much prefer it as you show at the end. I use it to wax my thread for fly tying.
WDTA UT the white wax is from the honey super cappings. It's new wax and is removed when harvesting honey each season, so it's not in the hive for very long. Many people use it for cosmetics as it doesn't have much of a smell and is easier to color if wanted. The yellow wax like mine comes from older wax that has been stained from bees, pollen, etc being stored in at and having many bees walk across it year after year. It has a stronger beeswax smell so candle makers prefer it. That's the main difference between the two colors.
Thank you. It just keeps getting more interesting.
The one that you see for sale that is nearly white is usually mixed with paraffin (petroleum) to lower the cost. They won’t sell honey capping wax at $9.99 lb I can assure you that. Even the wax foundation sold as wax foundation is mixed with paraffin. American beekeepers don’t know about these things. European beekeepers do
Omg, this reminded me of the horrid smell when a friend and I did this when we were young. No internet so we had to make it up as we went, worked, have a bunch of it still but man the smell was rank until we got enough trash out of the wax. Now it smells like honey.
Just another reason I don't do it in the house.
The Bearded Bee the stench of boiling old silk and any dead larvae is horrendous. I made that mistake today, with a whole lot of burr comb!
if you cut the blocks of wax prior to melting it will melt a LOT faster and take less time and propane
This is Shrødingers wax.
Did it roll off or stay at the table at the end?
We may never know.
Beautiful! I love it
Forbidden cheese wheel
Your neighbors must love you. :P
If he has enough land to support that many bee hives he's probably not that close to his neighbors.
But yeah they can kinda be a pain when you just want to sip your sweet tea on the back porch xD knew someone who had a hive in a DENSE suburban area and the neighbors never actually found out or noticed. Just made their own porch kinda unfun.
Beautiful wax. Worth the work.
Yknow, very interesting. You could take the gunk left over and maybe use it as fertilizer (if you have anything like a farm, this is your first video I’ve watched.) or maybe make candles out of the wax. Just take an old glass candle that already burnt out, clean it in boiling water, melt down a chunk of beeswax, put some wicks in the glass container, faced straight up, and pour. Melts like a wonder to me :shrug:
Most people just give the last bits of dirty wax back to the bees so they can reuse it if I'm not mistaken.
good video and process. keep it up
If you do this on a warm evening it uses less propane. I built a solar heater into which I put comb, a filter and a stainless steel pan. Leave it in the sun and the job is automated, (and doesn't use any propane.) Because the solar heater is made from an old glass fronted fridge, the whole thing is sealed from dirt and bees.
All true, although the point of this video was how to do it during thr cold months when a solar heater isn't going to do the job.
but beeswax discolors at 85C, which is 15C less than boiling water. So, you're discoloring your wax.
Sean Grace it's plenty dark enough for me as you can see in the final cleaned product.
You’ll notice beekeeper and ever farriers are very protective on their techniques they don’t like new info
@@RedMoonsEcho oh Lord! Don't EVER try to teach a farrier ANYTHING! AND NEVER, EVER, REJECT THEIR ADVICE WHEN THEY'RE IN THE VICINITY! 😳😲😳😳😳😳 SOME things are just not worth it....
Even If you KNOW your horse well, there ARE farriers who will still tell you how to do whatever, better.🙄honest to Job, we had one colt that had had to be gelded for EVERYONE'S safety..he just couldn't get it through his head that there was a time and place for everything and work time was not time to let his hormones rule his head. The little(NOT! 2ND PROBLEM) PUKE was just a menace. Ruled off the track late in his yearlong year, specifically because of his male hormone issues...;
As such EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY FEMALES, had to be VERY strict with him about his behavior. Black and white. It's either right or its wrong. No grey areas, Never let him push the boundaries, not even lean on them. Farrier comes..., decides I'm being too harsh with this (now) gelding who is standing there on 5 legs..and tells me to "soothe" him, just let him tuck his head into your chest...like he would have his with his momma's flank when he was a baby. " he's not a baby now. If I did that, he'd take a piece of me with him, faster than I could get a hand up to block his teeth"; "that's the problem with you youngsters. You want results *now*. You're never willing to look beyond the gimmick s and quick fixes.."(please bear in mind, at the time, I was one of *the* most sought after people in the business, strictly *because of* my patience, knowledge of both the harshest of methods as well as the most humane, AND my ability to accurately judge what was necessary for a given horse at any given time or situation...that I was "the girl who rides like a man." I had perfect control over my aggression. I could turn it on, or off , like a tap, I KNEW how important tone of voice was when working with a rogue...enough that I might be cussing an animal out in the harshest of language and tones, only to suddenly get what I needed from him/her, and switch tone within one-word, decidedly odd to hear "you ratfink b*tard! I'm going to make you WISH you were a can of dog food! And then we'll BEGIN to discuss the matter on MY terms! And suddenly speak to him in baby talk without missing a beat or changing a single syllable...there were days I was actually surprised nobody broke their necks, nor got whiplash!🤣🤣😎 I also got paid either "by the horse" or on salary. So if I could, I took my time, whatever it took. Which actually COST me money. If I could ride 7 horses in a morning...I made more than if I could only squeeze in 4...so the incentive to skip over dealing with problems and actually *fixing* them was slanted the wrong direction! And this yahoo is telling me, one that I'm a kid? Two, that I don't take the time to fix problems? 3) take shortcuts? Funnily enough, boss inspected *every foot trimmed* and *every* shoe put on. He's never that worried unless a horse is visibly "off" after a new farrier has worked on it. Said there was just something not right about that farrier, and he felt a need to keep a close eye on him. I asked if he could please have the grooms hold their horses for him in the future? One of the grooms came out and told him word for word what the farrier had been saying. Boss said farrier had NO idea how lucky he was about my well known🧨 emotional control! Virtually anyone else wouldn't have walked out of there alive!🤺 except for the fact that I could easily have quit on the spot(a very real concern to him) it WAS an hilarious experience! When I started laughing about it(I tend to find humor in most things, keeps me from murder.😉😁😎) there was a collective sigh of relief..and everyone else joined in. Bets were made about how long the guy would have any customers at all in the racing industry, and how long it would take for the day's episode to make it to the track, and the rounds of each barn, if nobody who was there didn't say anything. I bet a week. Cleaned up. The Guy was the one who actually BRAGGED about it, at the track!😲 had no idea he'd just signed his own death knell for his business. Not a single trainer would admit him to their shedrow after hearing his brag about "educating" *me*. Damn, I really really wish cellphones had been as easily handy then as they are now! THAT would have been worth seeing on RUclips! Along the lines of someone bragging that they'd told off Queen Elizabeth for having poor manners, and when she got old enough to eat with the adults, then she could speak to them.😳🤦♀️🍹🤷♀️ok, the fact that I'm NOW over 50 and get mistaken for my youngest daughter's younger sister IS funny, and *perhaps* relevant to the poor guy's plight, but tough noogies. EVERYONE at the track is short! Get used to it. Judge by what a person is or can do. Not by what they look like! Or how old you think they are or aren't! If everyone judged abilities by apparent age...most farriers would be out of work! They ALL look decrepit! For good reason. That job is BRUTAL on a body!!!🤺🤦♀️🍹
@ Sean grace: Did not know that tidbit! Thank you!💐
Did you wipe the sides down with liquid didh soap like said in the video? That's what keeps it from sticking. If not I would sit the bucket upside down over some cardboard or a tub in the sun. Let the sun heat up the bucket plastic and after it's been out there and gotten good and hot try pressing on the bucket sides and hitting the bucket to release the wax. If that still doesn't work you may have to cut the bottom of the bucket out and push the wax block out as a worst case scenario.
Try using different sized pollen bags. It's 6 nylon bags placed inside each other. With mesh starting at 160 micron and reducing down to 75 micron. Just put them in a bucket and pure your melted wax through it. It filters at the different stages all at once so you don't have to keep refiltering.
I've done it like that before and you lose a lot of wax that gets stuck in the piles of trash that quickly fills up the top of the filter setup. If only doing a pound or so that method works great, but for me when I'm doing 15lb blocks worth or wax plus all the trash associated with that, it's just as time consuming.
That’s a good looking cake of bees wax!
wow thats awesome that end product is pretty
Great video buddy! Really looking forward to getting into beekeeping.
Just a thought but you could try tieing the tops of the filters like large tea bags.or just putting then all in a cloth sack then boil the wax out of them.
Awesome video thanks
Great video!
A LOT of patience needed! How do you dispose of the dirty water once the wax has cooled?
save garbage, paper filter wax and husk stuff, when its still warm or hot make small pattie out of them, they make great fire starting material, make them anout the size of a hockie puck, maybe add a little shreaded paper to it as well, package them for fire and camping equipment.!
nicole bacon yes, I've made something similar for myself before, but never had made any to sell. They do work great!
That is a beautiful color
Very educative,thanks a lot but why did you have to confuse me at the end of the video ?? How did that clean water get into the wax bucket in the morning ? Am sure that while cooking the wax,the water wasn’t that neat and clean cuz of the beeswax in it ,like what I saw at the end,please explain? How did that clean water get into the wax bucket at the final stage? I really need to know this please . Did you put fresh water into the bucket in morning before separating the wax from the water? Am confused at the end .
Yes, you change out the water between each melting and cleaning cycles until it stays "clean".
Beautiful clean wax!!
I think you could maybe use a hair dryer on high heat to hit that 'trash' to help release some of the trapped wax with the help of gravity...
Great work. I also done that last week the same color got
Alternate title: How to turn beeswax into a giant cheese wheel
some thing to help ya clean it. i use a screen handle strainer. just dip it down into the wax and get the cocoons off the top Just helps to make the wax cleaner i just dump it each time into a trash can. Make the trash burns better> Don't use the water on your lawn the grass hates it > I dump it into the fire pit
I have used the handle strainer and dump before. With the filters I can fill them with cocoons and wax residue, twist them up, and sell them as fire starter "bombs" and make a few $ off my trash.
COOL No one around here got money I cant even sell honey So i use it for my self
thank you for your very intresting wax melting video
i would tie off the filters before reboiling them so the second render is self filtering
I think it might be a good idea to start with the relatively clean comb first.
Using a STINGER to boil water is SO much cheaper AND WAY WAY quicker than using propane. I have a HUGE custom built stinger - and I can boil 4 gallons of water from room temp to full on boil in less than 1 minute!!! THAT is how efficient stingers are. I also have my stinger setup going through a VARIAC which allows me to control the TEMP of the water!! ALL CUSTOM BUILT - and it is VERY easy to make - YOU should make a stinger for yourself!!! (it is so easy to make, people in PRISON make them to boil their cup o noodles. In fact THAT is how I LEARNED on how to make a stinger - from guys from prison!!!) Except they don't know about the variac addon which makes them even better :)
Speaking about the nasty stuff on the bottom of the wax blocks... Why doesn't people use tall skinny containers for solidifying the wax after rendering, and just cut the ugly part of after rinsing of the lose stuff, and toss the cutoff back in to the next batch? Less waste. Asking since that's what i do with candle wax all the time.
Mr B you can certainly do it that way. Some people use containers to melt the wax, then ladle the clean wax off the upper part and just stay away from the heavier solids that fall to the bottom. I like to get all my wax cosmetic grade clean and only do it 1 or 2 times a year at most. It's just easier for me to make a clean large blovk and be done with it. There are certainly many ways to go about it for sure.
Well, i wasn't suggesting that it shouldn't be filtered. I just do the last pour differently. But as i said, i only do candle wax, so my stuff is less nasty from the start. Last pour ends up in a tall narrow (PVC pipe for sewage actually) container, and when it cools it is just a matter of cutting the bottom part of the solid slug off, and throwing it back in to the next batch. After the nasties have gone back in to the system a few times, there is enough nasty stuff that it just isn't stuck to anything anymore, and it starts being possible to just rinse of the cut-off with cold water, and then toss it back in to the system. I think this should work for you guys as well, and minimize the losses. But i suppose the losses aren't that great anyway.
I have considered that. How do you get the wax billet out f the sewer pipe after it's solidified? Generally it sticks real tight to any container it's in...
Keith Green I've been thinking of using a piece of heavy duty drinking water grade poly pipe, cutting it in half lengthwise, and setting the bottom in an end cap and a couple of hose clamps on the sides to hold it together until the wax sets. I don't know if it'll seal well enough to stop the water and liquid wax running out the seams, though.
@ The Bearded Bee - I understand the process of making and refining your own wax now, thanks for showing us that. What I would like to know is the actual value of having your own refined wax in a monetary format. I doubt you are able to just sell the refined wax ingots to a candle company. That’s fine. What I want to know is how much value is it from the amount of refined wax you created today, into candles in value. Did this amount of wax create about $100 worth of candles for you? Maybe it made $300 worth of candles? So the big question: what is the gross value this amount of refined wax made into just candles is worth?
If you get about $5 per pound of refined wax that would be great to know. Ultimately this resource commoditized into a price per refined pound is the number we need to work with to determine the true value of working with this material. Thanks in advance for your answer and estimated value!
I actually part my wax out in different ways. First is selling blocks of wax for others to use in their hobby projects and skin care items they make. I sell 1/4lb blocks (roughly a soap block size) for $5 each. I also make and sell a few items of my own with it. Another way I part with it is by using it to wax my own frames and starter strips. This keeps me from having to buy wax and sheet foundation from a bee supply company constantly, which costs over $1 per sheet per frame, 10 frames per box, multiple boxes of frames per hive, etc, etc, etc. I do sell some small candles for $5 each as well. Also, although you won't get as much $ per pound, beekeeping supply companies will buy your wax from you that they will in turn make into sheet foundation to sell to the masses. It might only be a few $ per pound, but if you have a lot of excess wax around it can be a good way to unload it. Hope that answers your questions sufficiently. Thanks
Just four ounces of that beautiful gold would keep me in lip balm for more than a year. It's so hard to find naturally processed wax like that, at least in my area. 😍
Oreo contact your local and state beekeeping associations. It sells for as low as $5.00 per pound and some beekeepers just give it away, Look on Facebook there are a ton of beekeeping associations on there.
If you tune the filter inside out it will help keep the top of it open.
I do mine in the grass to keep the mess off the drive
5 gallon bucket sized"paint straining bags" are a good way to get the initial big debris out in quick fashion.
Dmm Dmm543 yes that's a hood way, I even do that in part of this video as well.
New subscriber.... I always wondered how to clean the 🐝 wax
Can You use the .filters and Bee guts etc. as fertilizer in the garden??? Or would that be a bad idea? Why? Thanks!!!
It works just fine in the garden compost pile.
cool that is what I was thinking but was not sure thanks for the response
This guy's voice is hot
Maybe it's because of how through he is, like i mean it proves how careful he is and how careing he is.. I dunno? Either way yes I totally agree!!!
great video
Thanks
This is the best wax cleaning video I have seen ! Where do you buy the tall pans and the paper filters from ? Also the nylon straining bags ? Have you thought about dipping the whole frames into the boiling water and melting the wax as you cleaned the frame ? ...Thanks
The tall pots and filters can be found at restaurant supply stores. The nylon bags are just 5 gallon paint strainer bags from any local hardware or paint store. I do dip whole frames and I have a video of that on my youtube page as well; look at the frame cleaning video on this youtube page of mine. Thanks
Useful thing but very hard work
Very useful info. Thank you
Good video 🎥
Hmmm, if you have a tank with a bottom spigot,, how about using 2 nylon stockings attached to the spigot by zip ties , one shoved in the other, to act as a 2 stage filter??
Lonnie Holcomb sure, that would work for the larger gunk, but it will still let the fine grit through.
Would process the dark (trashy) combs last to keep the equipment clean as possible.
Why don't you screen out the larger particles first with a simple screen? That would save you a lot of filters.
thats a nice lookin cheese
Why not use a mesh scoop to remove the large debris before filtering the finer stuff? Save loads of time and filters.
Could you tell me please what kind of filters are? Or where to buy it? Congrats for your work. The wax turned out soooo beautiful! Thank you
You have a nice end product but idk. i think id prefer to do it the old way by letting it separate and harden. Set it and forget it haha. All those filters just seems too tedious for me. If i were to use filters then it would have to be large commercial sized vats and id use vacume powered filters to speed it up and get more wax out.
It all defiantly depends on how much wax you are trying to process, how much free time you have, and how clean you need it gor your purpose. I do it more ways than this as well.
Those filters would be a good smoker srarter
I want to help you clean those 🙂🙂🙂 looks satisfying to clean
My bee keeper friend was telling me he uses sun to heat the wax hand purify it. Apparently he was using a closed container for that. I should ask him a few more questions...
He is using a solar melter, essentially a hot box with a glass top. You can see solar wax melter videos on RUclips if you do a search. They are not as good for such large batches as I was diing, but if you just have a box or teo of frames it might be the way to go, that is as long as it's summer and hot enough outside. I do all my wax work in the winter months.
Do Bee wax candles have a longer burning time than others.? Can you recommend a reasonable priced place to purchase some.? Thanks for this great video.
When I make candles, my smallest ones are in half pint canning jars. I've gotten about 30 hours out of one over a 3 day period of hour after hour continual burning. I keep some as emergency candles for when the power goes out. They are the brightest burnimg candle you can get and smokeless as well. Can't recommend any candle supplier in particular since I make my own.
i need some help guys. I am trying to separate wax from honey, but i didn't knew i had to wash the honey residus off before start melting and filtering. the honey melted and blended into de wax in such a way that i cant separate by this method of boiling, nor by filtering the melted product to a piece of filter. already filtered it 5 times using thick fabric, but the wax is still brown and smells of sour honey. is there some way to remove the propolis and sugars to clear it?
Tio Clotildo: There is lots of info in the responses to some of your questions to a lot of the comments. The Bearded Bee author is really knowledgeable and kind. I really appreciate his responses and his dedication to his viewers.
that was cool to watch!
Jessica Eaton thanks!
I heard that brood comb wasn't good to render because it will always smell bad. Is that true?
I've never heard that one before, but no, it smells no different than cappings wax as long as you thoroughly clean it. Bad cleaning jobs that leave bits behind is what smells. Dead bees smell awful so if you have bee parts left in your wax they could smell.
Some of the comb I render smells pretty heavily. I did a trial once where I rendered some wax that had been in water a LONG time. Smelled like pond-muck. The rendered wax smelled like pond-silt as well...until several months later when I went to sort my supply out and found that the smell had gone and it smelled like beeswax again. Magical stuff. I had saved the smelly stuff for use where the smell would not matter; garden implements, bullet casing lube, mold release, etc. In the end I sold it with the rest of my supply as I could not tell the difference any more.
@Truelove Correct. Still disappeared within several weeks of rendering, along with any dark colour or odour of brood comb.
So Beautiful.