Rendering wax

Ellie and I finally got around to rendering the wax that we had in the freezer from our honey harvest. We had hoped to use the wax to make a candle or two.

Since our wax from the crush and strain harvest still had some honey left in it, as well as other nondescript bee items, we had to melt it down and somehow filter it. A popular way to do this is to use the sun to melt the wax, which then filters through a paper towel into a bucket. But being in San Francisco, we rarely have enough sun for such a device.

We opted to use a second-hand crock pot instead. The first step was to dump all of our frozen, mushed-up comb in the pot and wait for it to melt.

This is what it looked like after it melted. I wish there were some way to make this a scratch-and-sniff picture, because the smell was awesome.

We then strained the melted wax and honey mixture through a pair of knee-high pantyhose, which Ellie will never be able to wear again, that we had wrapped around a ziplock container. Actually they weren't Ellie's. We bought them especially for this process and got a deal; three for a dollar.

The bee-gunk doesn't pass through the nylon and the wax and honey separate in the container. As it cools, a nice block of clean wax can be seen on the top of the honey.

I'm not sure if we'll have enough wax from this to be able to make a candle since I bought an enormous candle mold (3" x 5"), but we have a nice start.