Wax on Wax off

In addition to harvesting honey from our hives, this year we also harvested beeswax.  The wax comes from the cappings when you slice open the comb in order to spin the honey out and from rogue comb that the bees build in places where they should not.  We have never had enough wax to make it worth while to melt down until this year.  So, we have been saving up all of our beeswax up and finally, Ian decided there was enough to warrant melting it down, filtering it and making it into wax bars in preparation for candle making.

Rogue comb built on the underside of the bottom board.

We started by melting the comb and cappings in a small slow cooker with some water.  Ian then scooped out the impurities from the melted wax or scraped them off once the wax disc hardened.

We then remelted the wax and filtered it through five layers of cheesecloth into silicone ice cube trays.

The wax hardened up again and now is ready for candle making.

We made wax Jenga - too cool!

We are not big candle burners in our house and honestly, I think beeswax candles kind of smell like Ian's sneezes but candle making will be an adventure that we are eager to try.  We are debating between buying a candle mold or pouring the wax into a mason jar with a wick in the middle to make a container candle.

Candle mold.

Option 1: bee hive candle.

Option 2: mason jar candle.

I think the mason jar idea might be the best since then we will not have to deal with any dripping wax when we light them. Thank you to the bees for another cool and useful product!