Wax Melting and Filtering Part Two

I stirred the wax in the double boiler with chop sticks so that I could throw them away later.

















I set up half of a waxed carton with panty hose stretched over it as a filter. Then I poured the leftovers from crushing and straining my honey last year through the filter. Left on the hose is junk from the wax including bee parts, trash, bugs, etc.

















I wish I had filtered into a coffee can because I had a hard time getting the wax out of the waxed carton. I need to learn how to manage the wax from crush and strain differently. What I did was crush the wax and when the honey was all harvested, I washed the wax that was left.

Inevitably there was water in the bag with the wax pieces. It froze with the wax as tiny droplets on the individual wax pieces. When I poured the first wax through the filter, there was water in the melted wax. As the wax cooled it hardened around the water. So when I took the hardened wax out of the carton, water went everywhere. It was a mess, actually, and I lost some wax in the process.

If I had poured the water-laden wax into a coffee can, I could have poured the water out when the wax had hardened and then put the metal can into boiling water to remelt the wax. There has to be a better way to deal with the water, so I will visit some candle making books and web sites to find out.

The end result is that I remelted the now-filtered wax again in my double boiler and poured it into two bread pans to cool.

















Below are the bars I made in bread pans from my wax. Next time I want to wax in starter strips, I'll have filtered, pure wax bars to melt for sticking the strips in the frames.

When a beekeeper harvests honey, everyone says, "Don't do it in the kitchen because honey will be everywhere." I did my entire harvest in the kitchen without making a mess. I managed the honey harvest without a sticky kitchen.

Melting wax is quite another thing. Wax drips and pieces are everywhere in my kitchen after this process. I scraped wax off of my stove for a long time after I finished. Realizing that I don't want to do this to my stove ever again, I bid (and lost) on EBay for a hot plate. I'll get one on EBay or somewhere else before I melt wax again so the process can take place in my basement!