Wax Processing

[Burnsy]

Hi all, how do people get all the honey out of their wax before processing it and how much honey in the wax mixture is OK?

[AllenF]

I leave it out for a day for the bees to clean it up.   After that, I do not worry about the honey in the wax.  Any bit will separate out when the wax melts.

[L Daxon]

Leaving the wax out for the bees to clean up works, but sometimes a lot/some of the wax gets chewed up into a lot of little pellets/debris on the ground.

I crush and strain so I have a lot of wax. For the first round I strain as much of the honey off the wax as I can using panty hose. (this year I got some more formal bucket strainers from one of the bee supply houses but panty hose still work great if you have small amounts.)  At this point, even though the wax can look fairly dry, there will still be a surprising amount of honey still in it.  

I then microwave a big glob of wax in a glass Pyrex 4 or 8 cup glass measuring cub/bowl (size depends on how much wax I have. I use glass so I can see the separation and level of melt).  I use a microwaveable thermometer to make sure the temperature doesn't get too high (the wax should start melting when the temp gets near 140 degrees.  I usually have the power on for a minute or two, then stir to get the temp uniform.  Sometimes the temp will get up to 170 or 180 degrees but don't go over that. I keep microwaving in small timed increments until all the wax is melted.

The melted wax will float on top of the honey, but there will probably be a layer of sludge/debris on the bottom of the wax, depending on how good/fine the filtration was.  When everything is cooled, you should be able to lift the wax off the top.   You will need to scrap off the sludge part. This will leave you with nice round disks of wax. You may also want to re-filter the honey one last time.  Since this honey was heated fairly high, I use it for cooking.

[Burnsy]

Thanks for that.  I did a small amount yesterday and as there was only half a cup of wax I just washed it in warm water after I had filtered out the honey but I can see how this would waste a lot of honey when doing larger amounts.

Has anyone got any pictures of a honey press or good plans do build one?  There seems to be a few presses around on the net but I am not sure what would work for honey.  Ideally I would like to build one that will press olives and honey and can be operated by either using a bottle jack or reoving the vessel and pressing plate and sitting it onto a large workshop press and using the ram from that.

[Kathyp]

one of the guys here uses a cider press.  seem that would work pretty well. 

[Buz Green]

Wax will dissolve in mineral spirits or linseed oil. To remove splatters or spills I usually scrape as much as I can off with a plastic scraper and then rub the area with a cloth dipped in either of those solvents then clean up with hot soapy water.
Straight dish washing soap works great for a mold release. I put a bit into my mold and smear it around with my fingers to make sure everything gets coated and the set it upside down on some newsprint to keep the excess from pooling on the bottom. When I'm ready to pour, I flip it over and fill it. Let the wax cool slowly (overnight) and it just pops out of the mold.