wax processing

[bayareaartist]

Hi all,
Ok, how about we hear about different ways to process wax from hives.

Cappings,
and old comb.

Double boiler?
solar wax melter?

any and all ideas welcomed.

Thank you

[Archie]

hi,

go with the solar wax  melter.  only the wax drips into the collecting pan and all the dirt and evering else stays on the metal melting surface.

Archie

[Robo]

Solar wax melter.

Do the cappings and old comb seperately.  Do the cappings first and then the old comb and then clean it out.  Old comb is deceiving,  much more gunk than actual wax.

[TREBOR]

yup. solar

Do the cappings first and then the old comb and then clean it out. Old comb is deceiving, much more gunk than actual wax

yup yup

[photokid]

Solar. Love mine. Did the whole double boiling thing before the melter. I'll never go back. I'm waiting impatiently for this guy to fix my pan. In the meanwhile my wax is building up. I don't care, I won't do the double boiling thing ever again.

Also, the solar method is much better for the wax's wax properties.

[Dick Allen]

The gunk that comes from my solar melter gets saved in a large coffee can. When the can is full it's contents are boiled in water. That gets poured and pressed through my 'poor man's wax press', an old food colander. While it doesn't recover a stupendous amount of wax, there is still enough to make the effort worthwhile for me. The wax from the gunk, though is going to be darker.

[Jay]

Have a look at this previous post:

http://beemaster.com/beebbs/viewtopic.php?t=1545&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

[photokid]

I place some coffee filters above my recepticle pan and I'm good to go straight to candle making. Just have to wash off the watery gunk and that's it. It's beautifully simple. The melting pan gets a good scraping every now and then, but it's a breeze in comparison to all the filtering I used to do. So much wax gets lost that way. I probably lose 1% with my solar.