Melting wax

[Philip Parker]

I have quite a bit of wax (cappings) to melt from previous years. I have a solar melter I want to try. I can load the wax into a pot and melt it, but then what? I know I can pour it into molds once melted, but how will I capture the honey that is in the wax? Does the honey get mixed into the slumgum?

[capitalb...@tds.net]

With a solar melter the wax and honey will separate with the wax floating on top. With our solar melters we use loaf pans and we put them inside a nylon window shear bag, load the wax melter, let it melt and cool. The block of wax will float on top of the honey. We pop the block loose, rinse it off under wax to wash off any residual honey and that is about it for the first melt.

Rich

Capital Bee Supply

[capitalb...@tds.net]

Something else to think about...wax cappings, depending on what has been done with them after harvesting honey, tend to have a lot of honey in them yet. Even drained cappings can have a surprising amount of honey in them.

[Joseph Bessetti]

I've known of people to capture honey after melting the wax; the wax floats to the top, the slum goes to the bottom, and the honey in the middle.  However, the melting temperature of wax is about 160F, so if you heat the honey to that high a temperature it's no longer "raw".  Personally, I prefer to drain off as much of it at temperatures up to about 95-100F first to maintain it's quality or let the bees clean it up before melting the wax.  The overheated stuff collected after melting down the wax can go in the wife's tea or coffee as the temperature there is going to be high enough to kill much of the heat-labile properties anyway.

Joe

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From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of capitalb...@tds.net <capitalb...@tds.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2016 9:55 PM
To: madbees
Subject: [madbees] Re: Melting wax

 

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[Matthew Hennek]

I didn't have a ton of cappings this year so it didn't make much sense to put a lot of effort separating the entrapped honey out so I just added hot water, filtered, and fed the honey water back to the bees.

[jeanne hansen]

As Joe says, the honey recovered from melted cappings is darker, due to being heated.  That honey is excellent in bakery, where much of the delicate honey flavor is masked by other ingredients anyway.

This "second crop" of honey does not benefit from soaking in the slum gum until all the cappings are melted in a pot.  A solar wax melter lets the honey and wax flow away from the slum gum and fiber present in cappings, preventing the honey from picking of off-flavors.

Rich is very correct to provide filtering as the melted wax and honey leave the melter, which removes the last bits of foreign material.

 

Thanks!
Jeanne Hansen
824 Jacobson Ave
Madison, WI 53714
608-244-5094

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From: Matthew Hennek <matthew...@gmail.com>
To: madbees <mad...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2016 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: [madbees] Re: Melting wax

I didn't have a ton of cappings this year so it didn't make much sense to put a lot of effort separating the entrapped honey out so I just added hot water, filtered, and fed the honey water back to the bees. 

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[Philip Parker]

Thank you all very much - sounds like a fun weekend project for me!