Cleaning wax

[Sean Kelly]

So I did some crush/strain on a few frames and now have a huge ball of honey coated wax.  Besides buying or building a expensive solar melter unit, is there another way to get that honey residue out of the wax?  Anything I could just do in the kitchen?

Thanks again!!!

Sean Kelly

[Jerrymac]

I let the bees clean out the honey.

You could wash it in cold water and let it dry or melt it all down in the oven and the honey will end up on the bottom.

[Mici]

check the forum for the "easy" solar wax melter, or look it up on tillies blog, she did a great job at presenting how easy it is to make/use one.

[Zoot]

I made 2 solar melters this summer, one based on Tillie's design and one based on the model offered by Brushy Mountain. Both work great (the latter has greater capacity) and I find that using a paper towel as a filter removes almost all solid debris leaving only some residual honey which usually seperates nicely from the wax. A simple wash in cool water gets rid of it.

[Sean Kelly]

What about using a double boiler?  Will the honey seperate from the wax?

[Jerrymac]

I'm sure it will. Just melt the wax and the honey will end up on bottom and wax on top or if done in the water the honey will mix with the water and wax will float.

[tillie]

The thing about using a double boiler is that you can't ever cook in it again.  I did get a couple off of EBay for cheap but my favorite way is to use the solar wax melter.  There's a demo of how to do it on my blog - cost under 6 - 10 dollars and does is so nicely - designed by an Australian beekeeper.

Linda T hiking for a week in Quebec
(but my current "auberge" has wireless Internet!)

[EOHenry]

I put all my wax cappings out in the yard and let the bees take all the honey back to the hives.  I usually put it aways away from the hives to discourage robbing.  They clean every bit of honey off the wax within a day or two. I then put the wax in my solar melter.  I even put my extractor outside for aday and let them clean that up too.

EOHenry

[Drone]

Sean,

The double boiler should work fine. Like Tillie stated, any pot or utensil that is in contact with melted wax may become useless for anything other than wax melting. You may want to find some cheap Dollar Store type stuff to use for your wax melting duties.

Once it's melted, pour it into a container that will allow for easy removal. A used juice container is perfect (the cardboard type), or a big styrofoam cup if you don't have much to melt.

The wax will float on top of the honey so when you pour the liquid into the container, you might want to put a piece of coat hanger or something into the wax to use as a handle after it hardens.

If you do this in your kitchen be very careful. A melted wax spill is a nightmare to clean up.

[tillie]

I have dripped wax on my kitchen floor and found a YouTube video on how to get it up.  You take a brown paper bag and put one piece of the brown paper over the dripped wax.  Then you take a hot iron and place it on the brown paper over the wax drip.  You don't move the iron, just hold it in place for a moment.  The wax melts and soaks into the brown paper.  You throw the paper away and your floor is clean Voila!

Linda T hiking in Quebec

[TwT]

I friend of mine only has 2 hives, he loves messing with the wax and all, I went to his house a while back and he had about 20-25 clean cubes of wax, he said he bought a cheap double boiler and used it to melt his wax in, he said the way he clean the wax and make it them little cubes was he put a plastic ice trey in a pair of ladies panty hose, when the wax melted he pored the wax through the panty hose into the ice cude trey, it was very clean and good looking little cubes of wax......... just thought I would share that... oh and the way you clean any tool or pot when messing with wax is to fill a kettle full of water, let it boil and go outside and poor the hot water over what ever you are cleaning, works for me  ;)

[Understudy]

tillie,

I remove wax from the floor almost the same way I just use a paper towel and a iron on a very low setting. Works great. I think I found that as a way to remove candle wax from carpet in a Hints from Heloise column.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Scadsobees]

Cleaning wax contaminated utensils and pots is easy to...  Just get them above the melting point of the wax and wipe them down good with disposable rags or paper towels.  It will put a nice shine on them too.