Refining wax?

[Hawklord]

This is something I haven't bothered with yet but am wanting to do this year. What's the best way of extracting, what are the pros and cons with each method. I'm not sure whether the steamer or the solar extractor is the best. I have been told the solar is the way to go and make it big enough to hold a queen excluder. Can I put a brood box full of comb into the extractor or do the frames need to be sideways towards the sun? Would Celotex be ok for insulation or would it melt?

 

[wessexmario]

Some ideas I've had...

Why not make a dual purpose extractor box that could be used for steam or solar?
It could have a different lid (glass/wood) for each power source.

For solar, a standard 18" square pane of greenhouse glass would fit the bill if you are using an old hive box for the body, which will make it easy to hang frames in. The hive body doesn't need to be level, you could have a collection box underneath with sloped edges to hold it, if the top window cover is deep like a hive cover it won't slide off even at a 45 degree angle which would be optimum for collecting sunlight.

PS. Given a good weather forecast (up to 20C this weekend) I'm optimistically testing a solar extractor right now, I've put it in the greenhouse to give it a head start.

 

[Finman]

Solar extractor needs insulation:, that it warms up fast and the bottom is hot enough. Otherwise heat leaking is is too big.

Put the extractor to a bigger ply box and fill the gap with insulation foam.

When combs are dark brown, you do not get much wax from it. Wax will stay in larva silk. Steam extractor is better.

 

[Hawklord]

If using the steamer, does the hardness of water have any effect?

 

[Hivemaker.]

PS. Given a good weather forecast (up to 20C this weekend)

That sounds good, for here they forecast maybe up to 12c, with cold front moving in from the west.

You may find that greenhouse glass will crack when it gets very hot and used for a solar wax extractor.

 

[wessexmario]

If using the steamer, does the hardness of water have any effect?

Some say that the limescale can be seen in the wax so if you're doing it to show and you want first prize then it may have an effect, but wouldn't most of any limescale salts dissolved in the water be left behind in the boiling vessel, as only the H2O will be vaporising and condensing to warm the wax.

 

[Hawklord]

Thanks for the help. I already have a steam generator. Would using galvanised mesh to filter the large particles be ok or would I be best using stainless steel, I'll be using the wax for candle making?

 

[bigfathairybiker]

I just heat up the wax/honey/crud mix in a pot with some water and skim off the crud, the water adsorbs the honey and I lift off the wax when cool.

But this does mean that the wax/honey/crud has to be manually removed from the frames etc first.

Mark

 

[itma]

There are a few different things being confused in this thread.

The first is that solar or steam extraction is about collecting the wax - not "refining" it.
A filtering process (or more than one) would be used to clean up the collected wax, while taking care not to overheat the wax (it melts at about 65C and is said to begin to discolour at about 85C - though even at 100C its pretty slow). Hence the usual thing is to melt it over water, rather than by direct heat.

For candles, you need pretty good wax.
For high quality candles (show standard) you should be using only cappings wax - start with the highest quality material available.

Molten wax is discoloured by contact with many metals - including zinc (the coating called 'galvanising'). Stainless steel is fine, as seemingly is aluminium (foil is useful for channelling molten wax).

And steam is essentially hot distilled water ...

 

[Hawklord]

Thanks itma, I was hoping to be able to collect and refine in 1 process to save energy,cost, and time.