Welcome - Explore my Blog

I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

Even if you find one post on the subject, I've posted a lot on basic beekeeping skills like installing bees, harvesting honey, inspecting the hive, etc. so be sure to search for more once you've found a topic of interest to you. And watch the useful videos and slide shows on the sidebar. All of them have captions. Please share posts of interest via Facebook, Pinterest, etc.

I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

Need help with an Atlanta area swarm? Visit Found a Swarm? Call a Beekeeper. ‪(404) 482-1848‬

Want to Pin this post?

Friday, August 22, 2008

Pouring a wax block for the Honey Contest - year 2

I'm trying today to pour a good wax block in hopes that I don't have to make 10 attempts like last year. Here is the liquid wax, poured into a brand new brownie pan. The whole kit and caboodle sits in a hot water bath in a roasting pan. This allows for even cooling and keeps the block from cracking.


The picture below is out of focus, but it is a picture of my hand, using a toothpick to pop any bubbles in the wax block that rise to the surface in the early part of cooling.

After about 30 minutes the block looks like this. I leave it until the water around it is cold and the block has no heat rising from it. Usually that takes all day or over night, depending on when I pour it.

Tonight here's the finished product. I'm almost happy with it. There's a white mark on one side and if it doesn't polish out, I'll be pouring this again!
Posted by Picasa

3 comments:

  1. Hello Linda,
    Beautiful block you have there. I was wondering how you strain your wax? I'm having much trouble with fine hive particles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I put my wax from the hive into the solar wax melter that I made from a Styrofoam cooler - directions are on the blog sidebar. It filters out everything and the wax is clean and gorgeous for such things as making a block or candles.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Linda, Thank you. I appreciate your bee blog. There's good practical stuff here. I started with bees in March & consider your blog a reference. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

Pin this post

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...