Yellow beeswax.

I'm probably going to break forum rules but I need help and there are patients involved.

Does anyone know of a supplier of medical grade yellow beeswax? Please pm me. Desperately need to find a source to be able to continue to supply a specialist cream which is going out of stock in hospitals all over the country.

Thanks

Karol

Not sure which sort you refer to. General clean drawn comb or capping. What quantity do you need, weight wise? How does someone get it to you as it does weigh heavy.
I have small amount cappings wax

Agreed, you are after 'medical' grade beeswax.

What exactly constitutes medical grade? What is the grade? What grades are there? How are they measured?

I would have thought medical grade is man made... Not pulled out of a box of bees from someone's apiary!!!

Interested to know what specialist cream needed all over the country relies upon beeswax as well...

If you google cosmetic grade beeswax there is some out there. Even Amazon sell it. Would that qualify as "medical" grade?

Karol, it sounds an interesting sideline.

How can we beekeepers process our wax to the grade you are looking for?
And what quantity are you looking to source, now and in future?

Karol said:

I'm probably going to break forum rules but I need help and there are patients involved.

Does anyone know of a supplier of medical grade yellow beeswax? Please pm me. Desperately need to find a source to be able to continue to supply a specialist cream which is going out of stock in hospitals all over the country.

Thanks

Karol

Click to expand...

PM sent

Try KBS down near hastings

Another pm on the way.

Can we all share in this ?

Thank you to every one who has contributed and to those who have sent private messages.

In answer to some of the questions posted;

Yellow beeswax is a refined beeswax obtained by melting comb walls in water and then removing contaminants/foreign matter so that the resulting wax complies with the specification laid down in the British Pharmacopoeia. Ideally production must also be controlled so that it complies with GMPII and the material must be accompanied with a certificate of analysis demonstrating compliance with the BP specification and the material must also have a BSE/TSE statement.

Cosmetic grade beeswax will not be the same if it isn't manufactured or certified to the same standard.

The initial quantities are small because we will have to work up manufacturing methodologies and stability data for the specialist cream but after that the quantities could be reasonable, i.e. multiples of 25Kg lots.

Regrettably the law (Medicines Act) does not permit me to name the cream which again by law, can only be manufactured by specially licensed pharmaceutical laboratories.

Kind regards,

Karol

Thanks, that was interesting and hope you get what you need

Hi Karol,
Sorry, for resurrecting your old thread.
"Yellow beeswax is a refined beeswax obtained by melting comb walls in water and then removing contaminants/foreign matter". I tried this method once and I found it an horrendous process, not so much for the work involved, but because of the smell and it did not turn out yellow. I now put everything into my homemade solar extractor and the wax comes out either white or clear yellow. Is this not good enough for your purpose! Just wonder what the difference would be? Got nothing to sell. Also, I did buy some wax from a bee shop which was dingy brown. Poor quality not cleaned enough?

New wax / cappings render the best . The colour is influenced by the pollens from the plants being worked .
Dandelion produces a beautiful buttercup yellow wax! I'm not sure how this works as the wax scales produced are translucent white ! Maybe when foragers are on a particular crop the pollen gets mixed in as the workers manipulate / condition the wax into a useable consistency ?





Example of yellow wax !
VM


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Yes I've noticed at dandelion time new comb is bright yellow
The tea lights I sell are packaged with all colours. The people who do buy them like the idea that it is a natural product and varies. Cappings wax is lovely and pale and in my opinion the purest and most attractive.

Lovely candle......too good to burn!

Hi VM and Ericha,
I have a candle like that too good to burn - not bees' wax though. Love to see a variegated candle if poss Ericha!

That would be possible but I think Erica means colour variation between individual batches of wax .
It would be easy with moulded candles to part fill a mould with one colour then top up somewhat with another and so on until the mould is full! The only limitation being your imagination
VM


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Karol said:

Ideally production must also be controlled so that it complies with GMPII and the material must be accompanied with a certificate of analysis demonstrating compliance with the BP specification and the material must also have a BSE/TSE statement.

Click to expand...

beeno said:

I now put everything into my homemade solar extractor and the wax comes out either white or clear yellow. Is this not good enough for your purpose! Just wonder what the difference would be?

Click to expand...

If your wax has what Karol mentions in the top quote, Beeno, then i imagine it would be fine.

victor meldrew said:

That would be possible but I think Erica means colour variation between individual batches of wax .

VM


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Click to expand...

That's exactly it


Some of my candles are dual coloured sometimes as I pour half the mould then top up when set

Hivemaker. said:

If your wax has what Karol mentions in the top quote, Beeno, then i imagine it would be fine.

Click to expand...

I can't see it being something many small potential suppliers would enter into if they have to go through all that? I am not a great believer in certification per se as some of us ate horse meat 'after the horse had bolted'! More a question of the integrity of your suppliers. No certificate for that!

Karol said:

...
Yellow beeswax is a refined beeswax obtained by melting comb walls in water and then removing contaminants/foreign matter so that the resulting wax complies with the specification laid down in the British Pharmacopoeia. Ideally production must also be controlled so that it complies with GMPII and the material must be accompanied with a certificate of analysis demonstrating compliance with the BP specification and the material must also have a BSE/TSE statement.

Cosmetic grade beeswax will not be the same if it isn't manufactured or certified to the same standard.

The initial quantities are small because we will have to work up manufacturing methodologies and stability data for the specialist cream but after that the quantities could be reasonable, i.e. multiples of 25Kg lots.

Click to expand...

Self-certification that it has no BSE (or TSE) materials in its manufacture. Easy, surely? (No bits of cows or sheep anywhere near it.)
Complies with GMPII? Wassat? Google doesn't know of GMPII.
ADDED - Got it! Its actually GMP II "GMP II: Good Manufacturing Practice for Orthodox and Complementary Medicines" Not really sure of its relevance if the (natural) product meets the specifications.

Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) is an international standard that governs all the activities related to product quality.

The South African Regulatory Authority describes GMP as “that part of Quality Assurance which ensures that products are consistently produced and controlled to the quality standards appropriate to their intended use and as required by the medicine registration or product specification. GMP is concerned with both production and quality control.

Depending on the business and its intended activities, all pharmaceutical companies in South Africa require licensing with both the Medicines Control Council and the Department of Health.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty damn sure that no pharmaceutical company is going to be keeping its own bees in quality-standard approved hives, etc.
This stage is going to apply only to the packaging (and just possibly refining) of the product for this market.

Analysis certificate confirming BS specification? That looks like the expense and the distinguishing characteristic. But actually the BS specs that I can find online seem pretty loose. I daresay that most clean cappings wax would meet the specification, if it was tested.
Analysis cost is likely to outweigh the actual wax cost unless a large 'batch' were to be made and analysed.

So, for anyone producing cappings (doubt bright yellow beeswax really comes from melted comb walls!) in 25kg+ batches, it might be well worth keeping it away from other wax and sending some off for analysis.