Over the past several months during inspections, I've collected a bucket full of irregular and burr comb. Some of it has some larvae, pupae, and eggs in it, other bits have honey, and some has nothing at all. I've kept this in the freezer until now.
I'm wondering what to do with all of this? I hate to throw it away and I have a homemade solar melter that I was going to put it in to see what wax I can salvage.
What do people do with this stuff? Will I get any wax?
Thanks.
NKYBEEKEEPER.com
I just place everything I scrap off into the solar wax melter and out comes beautiful beeswax. Sometimes if the wax is very dirty to start with, I place it through the wax melter another time to get it really, really clean.
I have melted the worst of the worst. Smelly larvae ridden wax combs and the resulting beeswax is beautiful.
Annette
I also have melted stuff that looked like road tar with strings in it and it came out beautiful
I have 9 5gal buckets of this type of stuff. It is loaded w/ honey, dread bees, wax, moths, sawdust, insulation, shingles. I am glad i can save it maybe. Good info.
Quote from: annette on July 17, 2008, 09:50:08 PM
I just place everything I scrap off into the solar wax melter and out comes beautiful beeswax. Sometimes if the wax is very dirty to start with, I place it through the wax melter another time to get it really, really clean.
I have melted the worst of the worst. Smelly larvae ridden wax combs and the resulting beeswax is beautiful.
Annette
whats a solar wax melter? a pyrex dish left in the sun? or is there a specific device made for this purpose? I hadn't been collecting burr comb (or even removing it LOL, I'm so lazy :p) I just figure they will build more anyway. But if I can use it to make beeswax candles then I'm all over that ;) do you do some sort of filtering when it is melted? I know nothing about beeswax harvesting at this point.
Linda at this spot has info on a simple wax melter:
http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/
I am in the city on just a 5th of an acre so did not want a solar melter hanging about attracting insects and looking bad. I use a double boiler with great success. I have an inner stainless pot dedicated to wax so wife is not upset. Use candy thermometer to keep wax at about 140 or so. Add a couple of cups of water to the scrapings and cappings and then when the wax rises to the top I ladle it through a cone paint strainer on a home made three legged stand into cheap plastic molds about the size of a pound cake. When the floating rendered wax gets too thin to ladle, I set it off the stove to cool and take that half inch disk of leftover wax which has junk attached to the underside and start the next collection in the freezer. Take me two years of collecting and freezing to get enough to justify setting up the double boiler. Works well, but watch temp. That is the biggest advantage of solar . . . fill it and forget it.
The solar wax melter I made was based on Linda's website. A Styrofoam cooler at Wal-Mart was about $3, glass at Lowe's was $3.00. Just follow her directions. I did not paint mine. I melted my first piece of burr comb and it came out beautiful today. The larvae and pupae was all burnt up sitting on top of the paper towel, just as expected.
Interestingly, the melting point of bees wax is 144 to 147 °F.
we don't usually have enough sun for a solar wax melter. i use the double boiler also. i suspend the wax bits in cheese cloth and let it melt down into the water. when it is all melted, i let it cool and then remove the disk. i use the double boiler so that if the cheese cloth slips down, i can lift the inner basket and not have to fish the stuff out of the bottom of the pot.
I also used Linda's design and it was so cheap to make. I use 2 thicknesses of paper towels. Works great.