WAX reclaiming methods

[Grif]

I have started accumulating quite a lot of wax in the past couple of years. Some from uncapping the supers. Some from the waste buckets full of brace and burr comb along with dead bees n crud. Some from frames full of hard crystallised honey. I am looking for recommendations for some decent device for reclaiming the wax and separating it from the rubbish. I hope to try a bit of candle making with the wax. Is there a commercially available, well made, long lasting, easy to use piece of kit that could do all this? IF it could separate the crystallised honey for feeding back to the bees, that would be useful too. A big ask?

 

[Heather]

I use a box given to me by a shop that imports tropical fish. Cut hole in lid and inserted clear polystyrene window.
Inside is a loaf tin with hole in one end. This is in a muslin (dish cloth) to sieve the wax. Tin slopes (supported on lump of wood). Wax on top of muslin, sun heats , it filters through into loaf tin, then out through second layer of muslin into a collecting tin, which has some water in to help removal..

Have got loads this way.. free. But only use cappings and fresh burr. Dump any brown as waste of time and energy.

 

[bontbee]

For recycling wax I don't think you can beat a solar wax extractor, especially if you put all the stuff in a fine mesh bag before hand. All the crud stays in the bag and you have beautiful clean gold wax, even from the blackest combs. And you don't have to do anything much except fill and empty the extractor! (Oh, and wait for a sunny day....)

For separating honey and wax I use a Pratley tray, but I only use the resulting honey as bakers honey - but I do know people who sell the honey obtained by this method.


Beat me to it Heather, though I disagree about chucking the dark stuff! The coccoony crud left behind makes wonderful fire lighters/accelerants.

 

[wessexmario]

Dump any brown as waste of time and energy./QUOTE]

nooooo!

Dumping that is wasting a lot of wax. If you use steam and pass the hot liquid through a fine filter, you'll get lovely golden wax from even the blackest hive crud.

 

[oliver90owner]

First keep cappings separate from the rest. Best for candles, best for showing, easiest to clean up (if it needs it at all).

I use my steamer wax melter, but only on E7 leccy. I also recover frames and wax using the burco boiler.

Polyhive had a good video of a wax separator which works well. Old hat but practical.

Solar is cheap on energy costs, but not always convenient.

Fine mesh bags are good for wax recovery. Both in solar and if submerged in hot water.

Big T do the commercial products (mostly for the non-commercial hobbyists). Both steam extractors and heated uncapping trays are available. I use my steamer, have a hot water uncapping tray (used mainly in a solar box as it fits the purpose) and a direct heated uncapping tray that I have never used.

Wax melting is best carried out in the winter months while the bees are slumbering, especially if honey is involved. So you have plenty of time to research and build/acquire some kit.

The most useful is probably the old burco boiler. I understand that elements are still available for them and with three heat settings (375W elements in seies, 750W for one element and 1500W with both
elements in parallel). Was commercially produced but probably not now; and certainly not as a wax melter. The L*dl jam maker can be used, either as an item assigned to wax recovery (or needs very careful cleaning afterwards!) or as a bain marie type operation with the wax in a part submerged container.

So lots of alternatives available, but mostly home 're-assigned', or home built.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Having made a heck of a mess recovering the wax from old brood frames last year, my Mk1 solar melter is already a blessed relief; the wax simply melts off clean leaving crispy coccoons. Dead bees, mould, pollen, you name it, all stays on the tray because the flow rate is so low.

 

[amandaw]

I created a steam wax extractor from a plastic box and an old wallpaper stripper with the box top held on tightly with a couple of rachet straps - cost about £20 all in. I would be really interested in any recommendations about the best fine mesh bags to use though.....

 

[nantmoel]

I created a steam wax extractor from a plastic box and an old wallpaper stripper with the box top held on tightly with a couple of rachet straps - cost about £20 all in. I would be really interested in any recommendations about the best fine mesh bags to use though.....

Picture please

 

[dexter's shed]

any recommendations about the best fine mesh bags to use though.....

I use scrunched up old net curtains bought from the charity shops, catches everything and cheap enough to throw away

 

[REDWOOD]

I do it in two stages;
1) old saucepan filled quarter of the way with water, add wax until three quarters full, heat water (do not boil) and allow wax to melt, cool slowly and remove the set cake of wax, scrap the dirt from the underside.
2) prepare a container deep enough to hold contents of old saucepan, just cover the bottom with some water, put two "J" cloths over the top of container and secure with a cable tie or string and leave the cloth hang slightly concave, fill the old saucepan 1/4 of the way with water, add your wax cake and remelt, once the wax has melted pour the wax and water into container slowly.
Now you should have a nice block of wax that has no bits in it and ready to make candles.

 

[busybee53]

I use a solar extractor made from a dead fridge. Inside I use the top parts from am old vegetable steamer packed with the old wax. Instead of mesh bags I find any fabric cut from old clothes can be used to filter the melted wax. Then fabric and left over cocoons/debris can be chucked. The melted wax drains into a clean margarine tub with a little water in the bottom. Old honey & yucky stuff goes in the water and the wax block comes out clean. No cost involved.

 

[amandaw]

Picture as requested

 

[wessexmario]

hi amandaw, thanks for the photo, that looks very similar to my setup,
the difference is, I have a drain at the bottom of my container, so the hot water and wax dripping out of the filter flow into a receiving container for water separation and to mould the wax into a tablet.

My mesh filter is inside the steam box like yours, that helps the filter to work better, before when I used an external filter I found that it clogged up more as the temperature wasn't kept high across the whole filter.
I use 3 layers of paper kitchen towel on the mesh, that makes a very fine filter, the resulting wax is very clean, not even much propolis gets through it, there's only a millimeter or so of powdery propolis under the wax when done, the majority being stopped by the paper filter. On previous methods I found much more propolis under the wax, and it was more bread-crumby.

After having run a batch and it has cooled down, I find that the once soft paper kitchen towel paper filter has become rock hard, that seems to me an indication that the paper fibres have compacted, making it quite a fine filter.

 

[amandaw]

Good tips dexter's shed and Wessexmario, thank you!

 

[thenovice]

I do it in two stages;
1) old saucepan filled quarter of the way with water, add wax until three quarters full, heat water (do not boil) and allow wax to melt, cool slowly and remove the set cake of wax, scrap the dirt from the underside.
2) prepare a container deep enough to hold contents of old saucepan, just cover the bottom with some water, put two "J" cloths over the top of container and secure with a cable tie or string and leave the cloth hang slightly concave, fill the old saucepan 1/4 of the way with water, add your wax cake and remelt, once the wax has melted pour the wax and water into container slowly.
Now you should have a nice block of wax that has no bits in it and ready to make candles.

i do the same but step 2 in a slow cooker.

 

[Tom Bick]

Steam wax extractor is good at times of poor weather and if you need to get the job done. It does however require a bit of time as you have to stand over it and its a bit messy. The wax is also slightly darker than what you would get from a solar wax extractor. The video is from my simple setup using one of the cheap wall paper strippers and took about 30mins per nine frames.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTvys1Tw_NQ



Solar at this time of year is good as it requires very little of your time you simply fill it up and providing the sun plays its part you will get lovely wax. This year I have improved the efficiency of this rather small extractor with some simple silver reflective panels.

 

[Elaine]

I use tights as the filter mesh in my solar heater - seems to work ok

 

[Heather]

Beware. black tights can give green wax

 

[itma]

Using a flexible silicone baking dish (or loaf 'tin') as the wax receiver makes unmoulding the set wax much simpler than from any sort of metal pan.

I've found that steam uses a LOT of electricity.

For me, solars can (sometimes, not always) overheat the wax, making it darker. A solar melter doesn't want to be too efficient at trapping heat! Adding black inside the solar helps boost its temperature on a not-too-sunny day. But I've not come up with a subtle, variable, sunshade that isn't prone to blowing away, to try and limit the heat input on real scorchers.
In contrast, steam (or boiling water) melted wax is free of the risk of overheating and has consistently given me nice (pale or downright yellow) wax - a distance away from the brown fudge some produce with their solar melters.

Wikinson's black tights seem to work well enough. Not had any green stuff come out of them - mind you, I lead a sheltered life ...