Melting Wax

[witchcraft]

Silly question, but here goes.

What is to stop me going to a charity shop and buying a couple of old saucepans to make a bain-marie to melt my scrap wax (I have loads thanks to losing two hives to wasps in the the late summer, where the wasps have trashed the combs) rather than waiting for the summer and buying/building a solar wax extractor?

 

[Norfolk]

Silly question, but here goes.

What is to stop me going to a charity shop and buying a couple of old saucepans to make a bain-marie to melt my scrap wax (I have loads thanks to losing two hives to wasps in the the late summer, where the wasps have trashed the combs) rather than waiting for the summer and making/building a solar wax extractor?

Absolutely nothing at all.

You can do it in one pot with water too, although a bain-marie is better.
Once the wax has melted, let it cool and remove the "disk", scrape the crud off the bottom and repeat.

Where are you in Suffolk ?

 

[witchcraft]

Thanks Oscar - I guessed so. I'm right the other end of our county between Bury and Hadleigh

 

[VEG]

Brood combs are not really worth trying to melt down, you will end up with a saucepan full of smelly crud and very little wax out of it.

 

[Norfolk]

Thanks Oscar - I guessed so. I'm right the other end of our county between Bury and Hadleigh

Oscar ??

Perhaps I remind you of Oscar Wilde ?

 

[witchcraft]

Err - your Sig block certainly suggests you are an Oscar

 

[VEG]

Err - your Sig block certainly suggests you are an Oscar

The quote is from oscar wilde

 

[Norfolk]

Err - your Sig block certainly suggests you are an Oscar

Ah yes, very understandable, I thought it was my fine featured avatar.

 

[Amari]

Brood combs are not really worth trying to melt down, you will end up with a saucepan full of smelly crud and very little wax out of it.

I use brood combs as firelighters

 

[madasafish]

Brood combs are not really worth trying to melt down, you will end up with a saucepan full of smelly crud and very little wax out of it.

Err..
I melt them down in my solar extractor - and yes there is lots of junk left - but the wax is fine after straining..

 

[YorkshireBees]

Err..
I melt them down in my solar extractor - and yes there is lots of junk left - but the wax is fine after straining..

I'm with madasafish but also agree that there is a lot of the cocoons etc. left behind so I probably wouldn't do it myself except for the ease of just sticking them in my solar wax extractor in the summer!

Any wax recoverable is always worth it but only ou an decide how much work it is worth.

 

[enrico]

Melt it in the microwave stirring once or twice, and pour it through hessian sacking, the crud stays in the sacking for use as firelighters and the wax comes through clean.
My only concern is as yet I have never had an explosion by over heating, but.....
No one has yet heated it to the point of explosion as far as I know!!!
If you are this first one, and live, can you let me know how long you left it in there!
Seriously, I melt it in the microwave all the time.
E

 

[VEG]

I am thinking more of the cost of heating it up for the wax gained, as the OP wanted to heat it in a pan not a solar extractor

 

[For want of a better word]

I melt down 20 at a time in steam box... knocked up from an old National solid floor and an old roof + a stripper steamer....
crud stays on frames, and can be shaken off for firelighters... wax drips out fairly clean into bucket of hot water ( sat on top of steamer)
framed dumped straight into a vat of hot caustic soda, and come out clean for drying and re waxing!

 

[itma]

The double saucepan thing may have a problem with processing enough volume of comb, to get enough wax to pour off!

If you can find a catering-sized Baked Bean tin, cut both ends off to leave a tube. Tie a bit of clean nylon stocking/tights (Wilkinsons are pretty cheap) over one end. Arrange some means to suspend the thing in an oven.
Fill it as full as you can with scrunched up comb and leave it overnight in a very low (65C?) oven, to drip cleanish wax into your chosen receiver.
After turning off, give it a few hours to cool and set before you try and move anything.
A silicone baking dish makes a great receptacle as it will allow you to easily unmould the solid wax cake at the end.

By all means then start playing with double boilers and extra strainers to clean it up properly, but the first step is to get the wax away from the bulk of the old bee cocoons that seem to make up most of old brood combs.

Low and slow is the way to avoid spoiling the wax.
The solar extractor just takes the energy cost (and need for supervision) out of the equation.

 

[alanf]

...crud stays on frames, and can be shaken off for firelighters...

Agree, it's far easier to melt the wax out initially while it's still in the frame. You're left with the old cocoons that knock out far more easily than trying to cut out the comb intact. Either steam if you have a lot or a couple of frames a day in a solar box. The collected wax still has some crud even through a basic screen. It might be clean enough to trade for foundation but that's when the bain marie comes in to re-melt and fine filter the wax for candles etc.

 

[hedgerow pete]

Silly question, but here goes.

What is to stop me going to a charity shop and buying a couple of old saucepans to make a bain-marie to melt my scrap wax (I have loads thanks to losing two hives to wasps in the the late summer, where the wasps have trashed the combs) rather than waiting for the summer and buying/building a solar wax extractor?

nowtidea, i used to use a large sausepan and a oil can with the top cut off to do mine in

 

[Sandbee79]

Baim marie is ok for small amounts of beeswax but best way is in the oven. You can control the heat too. set to 80 degrees not more than 83 or wax will go grey and brittle.

Take a large tin can like a large bean tin or a tin that marmande comes in.
remove top and bottom. An old shirt or bed sheet wrap a piece around one end. secure with string. make sure there's enough give to put the beeswax in.place directly on shelf in oven and let the wax drip down into a bowl or tin with purified water in. not tap water unless it's filtered. This is best done when you've been using the oven for cooking.

Important to mind the temperature. The slum gum will remain in the cloth and you wont have to reheat. The more you reheat wax the darker it gets. This is also less messy than bain marie. finally when all wax is melted let it cool in the oven. good luck.

 

[beeno]

Hi witchcraft,
Some things you'll only do once and melting wax indoors was one of those things for me. Rank horrible smell and not very nice wax. Solar extractor outdoors. Even brood comb gives nice wax, cocoons get caught in J-cloth. Make sure you freeze combs before you store them over winter in wax moth proof container!

 

[Swarm]

No problem with cappings but I wouldn't think of melting old brood comb indoors.