What About the Wax Cappings?

I've heard that it can be such a mess dealing with the wax cappings. The cappings are the wax that is cut off the top of the cells of honey in order to extract the honey. I recently read an 'How To' that sounded so simple I thought I would give it a try.

1. Set the cappings outside and let the bees clean up the extra honey.

I covered an old cookie sheet with a layer of aluminium foil and sort of spread it out. I placed the tray roughly 40 feet from the hives and was hoping to watch the bees do their thing but we left to run errands and ended up being out all day. By the time we returned, not only was every speck of honey cleaned away, but the wax was totally rearranged, separated into a neat layer of wax flakes! I'm not sure if you can see this by the picture, but we were really amazed at how the bees broke down the wax pieces!



Thank you bees for doing such
an outstanding cleaning job!



2. Fill an old crock pot with water and hear the wax on low.

The wax is lighter than the water so will float on top. Once melted, turn off the crock pot. Once cool, remove the wax and pour out the water.

3. Scrape off any impurities from the wax and repeat. The wax will get cleaner with each melting.

If melting old brood comb, they recommend putting the wax in a nylon stocking the first time then squeeze out the excess wax before letting the wax cool.

4. After the wax has been rendered, use a double boiler to melt the wax to  pour into molds.

I'm in the middle of the first melting but it seems to be going very well, it has not been messy at all.