Birds and the beeswax

I was at the local craft store looking for some glycerin soap for a soap project. Right next to it was the candle making section. I love candles, sort of. And I noticed that they had wax there. This is a good things since that is what candles are made of. Well, there were two waxes there. One is the old oil based paraffin, the other is beeswax. Both blocks of wax cost $16. But the Beeswax was 1 lb, and the paraffin was 2 lbs. Hmm, said I. How hard can it be to get the beeswax from the hive and turn it into a product?

Turns out that it is simple...

stage 1 - pulling the wax out of the beehive trimmings.

1. put big pot of water on to the heat. Place all the comb into the water. Wait for it to melt.
2. place several layers of cheesecloth across a strainer and pour the pot with the hot water and wax through it.
3. let the new pot cool to room temp.
4. pull off the plug of wax on the top of the pot.
5. Clean off the underside of the wax plug.

Stage 2;  - further refining
1. Use a double boiler to melt the wax.
2. Strain the wax with a very tight weave filter material to remove all the solids. gossimer. is said to work well
3. and place wax into a mold

Yep, that is it.

So you need to melt the wax a couple times, but that isn't so bad.
The question I would have is how would you do this economically with 30,000 pounds of wax a year?

here are a couple of people that have actually done this...

Bernie

fitzpatrickfarm