Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => Products Of The Hive => Topic started by: rober on July 01, 2021, 04:36:08 am
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i've read, picked peoples brains, read some more...and still when i mold what appears to be clean wax there is still some residual honey at the bottom of the mold. currently i run the wax thru my solar melter. the honey accumulates in the catch pan. i pour it off, wash the wax, & run it thru the melter again. then i heat it a pot of water with wax & pour it thru a grease filter where it falls into a bucket of clean water. i see that a commercial operation that sells wax offers it's wax in bead form. i wonder if the wax went thru a screen after leaving the grease filter would help? i just found 4 5 gallon buckets of cappings from last year & i'm about to extract so i'm about to have a whole lotta wax to process.
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rober, I use old sweatshirts to filter the wax. That eliminates a lot of the steps you have described. I melt the wax cappings in a pot of water then let cool. As you know the wax rises to the top and forms a disc. You can repeat this if the wax is still dirty. When I am ready to filter, I melt the wax in a double boiler and then pour through the cut up sweat shirt, unfinished side up. Since you have buckets of wax cappings to clean, I would go to the thrift store and stock up on old sweatshirts and hoodies. I don't have any luck trying to reuse the same piece of fabric twice.
Save the used pieces of sweatshirt fabric. They make great fire starters.
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I use Tshirt as the top layer in my solar wax melter. If I'm not happy with the color, etc, I do it again, clean t shirt. (I destroy enough clothes to have a good supply)